


Living Legend : Book 2 : Discipline v Humanity

by CassEastham



Series: Living Legend [2]
Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Action/Adventure, Drama, Eventual Romance, F/M, Female Protagonist, Jedi Training, Military, Post-Return of the Jedi, Space Battles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-19
Updated: 2015-11-26
Packaged: 2018-05-02 10:38:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 47
Words: 89,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5245190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CassEastham/pseuds/CassEastham
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Back to life in the military and Skywalker transfers Kess to his command so he can keep an eye on her fits of temper. He gets more than he bargained for when the grease monkey grounds his entire squadron for overhauls, not to mention training a female rebel under a microscope grows complicated. When the worst part of Luke's 'long story' is revealed, his apprentice snaps under the strain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. LL2 1 Returning Home

** LL2 1: Returning Home **

When Han killed the hyperdrive engines, he was already switching on the comm channel to report their approach and order medvacs for the wounded. Yavin 4 glowed emerald green on its dayside, but the base was a single cluster of lights several hundred kilometres into the night. Solo reported a summary of events on the subspace channel days before, so the New Alliance was expecting them. They sent warm but worried 'welcome home's.

Solo hit the ramp control with one hand and unbuckled his seatbelt with the other. By the time he, Lando and Kess came out of the cockpit, the _Falcon_ swarmed with medics and ground crew, shouting out orders and demanding answers about the state of the wounded.

Kess meekly stepped aside as Councilor Leia Organa Solo was pushed out on a gurney. Solo frowned as he followed the medics carry his wife off the ship without giving a glance in Kess's direction. She pushed back the afterimage of Solo's anger and moved to the passageway where her duffel waited. Lando was there, giving medical observations to another team who transferred Luke from his bunk to another gurney. Chewie walked out of the ship on his own two feet but was escorted by a member of the ground crew. Zoiy woke once during the trip, but that was just to throw up. The swarming medics filed onto the pad as they pushed the redhead out on a third gurney.

Kess slugged behind, trying to stay out of the way of all the hustle, but armed escorts closed in on her as soon as her combat boots hit the duracrete deck. She turned to glare at Solo when he stepped over with insistence. "Put her in holding until she's called for debriefing."

"Captain! You're overreacting!"

"Overreacting?" He raised an eyebrow at her. Solo motioned behind him as doors slammed shut on the medvacs and yellow lights spun to flash against the dark walls. Sirens blared hair-raising octaves as the vehicles carried the wounded away.

She stumbled over her words, "But-, I- I have a right to unbiased counsel!"

"You'll get your call in the morning," he sneered and stepped away.

The escorts nudged her to move. Kess didn't like being treated like a criminal, but the escorts could not have cared less what she thought about the situation or why. They posted themselves behind her shoulders and ushered her to start marching. The ground crew secured the ship and hurried back to the travel way to return to their respective watches. Han hopped on the runner that was waiting to take him and Lando to medbay so they could worry over Leia and Luke. Threepio waddled down the travel way carrying Han and Leia's bags back to their home. Artoo followed with Luke's bag on an extended arm.

Pad 14 went dark and silent again.

It must have been 2200 or later, Kess estimated. Only every other overhead light shined in the travel way. On the pad, six out of seven lights were turned off as if to allow the parked X-wings to sleep. Kess adjusted her duffel on her shoulder, glanced at the escorts, and sighed as she began her walk to the Security Building.

She was not looking forward to questioning, especially with Solo at the helm of the interrogation. Her thoughts began a checklist of the facts so she could get her own story straight and airtight.

When they exited the Complex, the wet jungle scent filled her nose. It was a comfort to be home despite the circumstances. A field of green grass split the six pad complexes. On one end, overlooking the base with proud white pillars and an extravagant facade, stood the Council Building where the New Alliance leaders reported for work every day. At the other end stood the Admin Building where personnel managed personnel. The Admin building and a dozen support buildings behind it separated two rows of barracks. The four-story rectangles were identifiable only by the numbers painted on the end walls and stood like dominos in twin rows long enough to house several thousands of New Alliance service members. Kess's barracks building was straight ahead, seven buildings deep into the South row, but the guards ushered her to the small security station behind Admin.

The security office was near empty in the middle of the night. A sergeant, bored with his watch, filled out her paperwork and a young private ushered her down the hall and locked her behind bars. Once she was inside, she sighed and turned around, seeing the world from the inside of a cell.

The private handed her a datapad through the iron. "In case you don't feel like sleeping, you can write your debrief report."

Kess had never been 'debriefed' before. She wasn't sure what the term meant. It must have showed in her face.

The private eyed her like she was stupid. "Your side of the story."

Kess stepped back and looked at the blank datapad. The private walked away, leaving her alone in the cell with the datapad, the camera's unyielding eye, and the fluorescent bright lights. She sat down on the bunk, leaned up against the wall, and thought hard about her side of the story.

By the time morning unfolded, security sent a droid to her barracks to gather her dress uniform, and a courier took her debrief report to the Council Building. In fresh khakis and tidy, braided hair, Lieutenant Lendra awkwardly met armed escorts at the door of her cell when they let her out. They marched her to a security speeder, drove her directly passed her workplace, and parked her out back of the Council Building.

Once in the Council Building, the guards directed her through the halls and up the elevator. The little Lieutenant had never been inside the building before. Without being obvious about it, she watched the other formally dressed bodies, ambassadors, administrative assistants, political officers of all kinds. When she stepped out of the elevator, they took her to the closed door of a conference room and ordered her to parade rest. Then the escorts fell into parade rest on either side of her.

People brushed passed them in the hall for several minutes, ignoring her entirely until one body stepped up and stopped to face her down.

Han Solo's face was nothing less than livid. His index finger pointed stiffly at the tip of her nose. "If you lie in there, I _will_ find out about it."

Kess didn't move her eyes to give him the pleasure of meeting his glare. She took the battering in unflinching, military fashion.

Solo poked his head in the door. "Are you ready for the Lieutenant, sir?"

Kess caught her throat. _Who was Solo calling 'sir'?          _

"Okay," he said. He motioned the guards to stay in the hallway and ordered her to go in. Kess came to attention and marched into the conference room. The room had more doors on both walls, probably shortcuts into personal offices, and a window on the far wall with a view of the jungle behind the building. A long oval table cut lengthwise down the room, surrounded by comfortable chairs and heavily decorated officers.

Kess recognized Commander Tolgray instantly because she expected him there. Commander Tolgray was the Commanding Officer of Gold Group (Kess's boss' _boss'_ **_boss_**.) Across the table from him was Admiral Drayson, the Commanding Admiral over Rogue Group (Luke's boss.) Next to him sat the unmistakable Admiral Ackbar who ran the entire fleet (Luke's boss' _boss_.)

And, as if to beat her already dead career one last, fruitless blow, at the head of the table was the Minister of State Dell André, (Leia's boss… or, if you climbed the chain of command high enough, _everyone's_ boss except for Chief Commander Mon Mothma herself.)

_Kill me now._

At the foot of the table, Kess came to attention with her back to Solo, who, smugly, shut the door behind her.

* * *

 

Luke opened his eyes and recognized the ceiling of a patient room of medbay on Yavin Base.

He rubbed his eyes and squinted.

 _Yes, this is definitely in medbay._ He'd spent a lot of time in this very bed recovering from missions before. His nose curled at the after smell of bacta liquid permeating his skin from an unconscious dunk in the tank.

He sat up slowly and verified to himself that, last he could recall, he went to sleep in a suite bedroom on the Frakkan System, thinking about things he probably shouldn't have, and mulling over the fight with Kess on the beach.

To him, that was yesterday, but he knew it would have taken at least four days in hyperspace just to get back here. He wondered how long he was out before that, what events had caused his unconsciousness, and, most importantly, if everyone else was all right.

Nearly on cue, Lando strolled into the room with the silver and black skeletal frame of the med droid waddling at his heels. Two-One-Bee greeted Luke with pre-programmed bedside manner as he began some periodic vital sign check.

Lando greeted him with a smuggler's grin. "He's alive! Howya doin', Luke?"

Luke pushed himself to sit in the bed and rubbed his eyes. He inhaled to ask the first question that popped in his head, but the second and third, and fourth questions crossed his expression before he got any words out—

Lando almost laughed at Luke's honest expressions of confusion and answered a few he knew Luke was trying to put into words. "Everybody's fine. You and Leia were drugged into a coma, but it was nothing a dip in the tank couldn't cure. The Frakkan government made a deal with the Empire and tried to turn over your negotiating team over to Admiral Cheenan, but your _Usak_ and I foiled their plans and got you guys out of there."

"Usak," Luke repeated, _I used to know what an Usak was._ He blinked, "Kess?" He blinked again at his friend. " _You_ and Kess? What were _you_ doing there?"

Lando crossed his arms at his chest. "Coming to warn you." He shrugged humbly, "I was late."

There was a questionable pause in Luke's eyes.

Lando broke the silence, "I brought your uniform so you could get out of those pajamas and sneak into debriefing as soon as you were ready."

Luke started pulling off the ties of the hospital gown. "Do you have a speeder here?"

"Waiting out front," Lando said as he strolled out the door to let the man change.


	2. LL2 2 Debriefing

** LL2 2: Debriefing **

Winter handed Luke the debrief reports as soon as he walked into Leia's front office. "Hi, Winter."

"Welcome Home, Commander." She led him to the back hall. "They've been in there for an hour. The Councilor is on her way. Captain Solo has the Lieutenant's security check results." Before opening the door for him, she paused. "Can I bring you anything?"

Luke's eyes were already stuck on the report. Distracted, he shook his head, "Uh, n—" But he stopped himself and raised his eyes. "Food?"

Winter nodded. "I'll have something brought up." She opened the door for him and returned to her desk.

"Thanks," he murmured. His eyes read the datapad as he blindly pushed the door control with his elbow to close it behind him.

Han was in the middle of listing offenses, "…illegal possession of spice products, public drunkenness, property damage." He slapped the security check on the table. "Tell me again about your 'spotless' record, Lieutenant?"

Kess flinched when he slammed the datapad and closed her eyes with frustration. "Spotless _military_ record, Captain," she spoke in a tense whisper. "Everybody has an Imperial record."

At the other end of the table, Admiral Drayson muttered with disapproval, "Not _everyone_ , Lieutenant."

Kess let out a stiff sigh through her nose. "I swear, I don't know any more about the Usak thing than you do."

Luke could hardly pull his eyes from the report in his hands and was about to stop reading when something caught his eye. He smiled as he read it aloud. "Jumped onto the ship while it hovered next to the broken window of the thirty-fifth floor?"

At the sound of his voice, Kess spun around in her chair with a breath of relief and eyes of shock.

Luke smirked at Han then at Kess. "Who thought up _that_ part of the plan?"

Kess gulped down air as if someone just gave her a fresh oxygen tank. "Is Leia okay too?"

Admiral Drayson lifted an eyebrow at her.

Commander Tolgray almost laughed. " _Leia_?" he echoed.

Luke watched Kess settle back in her chair and dropped her sights to the tabletop with humility. "I— I mean, uh, Councilor…" She gulped and closed her eyes for a relaxing, anxiety-cleansing sigh.

Luke was inwardly proud at Kess's knee-jerk habit to cool her panic with a Jedi meditation.

" _Councilor_ Organa Solo has recovered as well," the Minister of State assured, gently reminding the _Lieutenant_ how to address and refer to _'Leia'_.

Kess huffed again and gave a quick smile. "Oh good." She closed her eyes, cursing at herself in her mind. The woman shook with weariness from this intense questioning.

Luke noticed how stiffly all eyes were on her; how all the anger and confusion in the room was directed at her. Kess worked hard to keep her cool in all this, trying not to panic, trying not to fight back, but when he moved around the table for a chair (and into her line of sight) Luke felt Kess simultaneously swell with a different kind of relief _and_ a different kind of fear.

Luke met her eyes with uncertainty how to read this and Kess stared meekly back like a little kid in trouble.

Thankfully, Lando popped in and distracted the discussion with the minutia of his arrival.

Luke watched Kess take in what was going on, glaring at Han from time to time, but her eyes found Luke's again. And it was there again; that odd fear, that strange relief.

It was almost foreign to him. She wasn't emitting an, 'I'm-so-happy-your-here-to-save-me-from-these-vultures' kind of hope. It wasn't even an, 'I'm-so-happy-I-didn't-kill-the-last-Jedi-by-accident' kind of reprieve. The woman was, simply and honestly, concerned for his general well-being.

Lando settled into the chair next to Luke. "So? Where were we?"

Han slid the security check results across the table at them both. His voice was snide, "We were reviewing evidence of the Lieutenant's character."

Luke revealed a half-grin as he picked up the card. "We wouldn't be able to compare _your_ character with _your_ Imperial record," he angled his chin and eyed his brother-in-law with a cocky smirk, "now, would we, Han?"

Han glared a smirk back at the kid as he scratched his eyebrow with a specific finger.

Admiral Ackbar heckled.

Han leaned onto the foot of the table recapped for all eight people now in the room. "I sent up a request to have a Repair Engineer assigned to our trip for a repair-in-air. _Any_ repair engineer, as long as they were good. By the time Commander Tolgray got my request, it expressly asked for Lieutenant Lendra by name." Han put his fingers on a datacard and flicked it to slide like a dart at Kess. "Now. You show me one solid piece of evidence that proves you didn't gundeck the request to get yourself on board."

Kess opened her mouth, paused, and spit it out, "I didn't do it! I didn't do anything! I didn't even know I was this Usak thingy until Lando told me! By then, you guys were already captured!"

Admiral Drayson croaked gently, "That's not proof, Lieutenant."

Kess sighed at her lap. "No, I know it's not, Admiral."

"Kess?" Luke waited until she looked up and met his eye. He worded it clearly and quietly. "Did you gundeck the request or not?"

She looked at him honestly, almost begging. "No. I did _not_ gundeck the request. I didn't even know the request was gundecked until we were on our way _home_." She inhaled desperately, "Luke, I swear to you…"

Luke was thoughtfully covering his mouth to unravel the clues. He believed her. There was no question in that, but the puzzle nagged at him. He fidgeted with his lower lip as he eyed her, considering all this.

But Kess's expression withered at his gaze. She stopped short, shut her trap, and sighed at her lap again. "I mean, _Commander._ "

Admiral Ackbar inhaled to speak, but Leia burst in through the door. "Five thousand, four hundred and sixty-two people _dead_! Countless more wounded! The entire city of Sultani has been flattened!" Leia stopped behind her husband and slid the report across the table toward the Minister and his high officers. She yelled over the heads of them all and pinched her fingers together in the air. "Dell, I swear we were _this_ close to a treaty conclusion!"

"There was nothing you could have done," Lando consoled respectfully. "Admiral Cheenan arrived the same day you guys did. The Frakkans kept your presence a secret as long as they could."

Luke reached for the report, appalled at the numbers. "The entire city? Why?"

Admiral Ackbar bobbed his head. "Cheenan was upset because he lost his chance at the Usak."

Kess shuddered in her chair.

Leia yelled, "So we've got another Sith Lord taking out his anger on innocent people!" She paced to the back of the room. "And just when we were getting on our feet!"

Once Luke was finished with the report, he offered it to Han.

Han waved it off. "I read it."

Minister Dell André leaned back in his chair and looked at Leia over the rim of his spectacles. "Let's take a short recess. Leia, come talk to me about the Treaty That Almost Was."

Luke started to stand up. "Do you need me, Minister?" The Minister waved him away.

Lando and Han chatted as they filed out of the room. Han gave Kess a hard look before he moved out the door. Ackbar, Tolgray, and Drayson filed out as well, going to their commlinks to take care of other business during the break.

Luke stepped up to Kess just as she was reluctantly rising from her chair. "Come with me," he ordered, curling a finger for her to follow. He led her out to the office common where Winter handed him a paper bag. He asked the assistant. "Is the library empty?"

Winter nodded, not only in response to his question, but to his insinuation as well. Without a glance at Kess, Luke pushed into a room across the office common and motioned for her to shut the door behind her.

There were databases and terminals galore in here. All the information the Alliance had at somebody's fingertips. Kess noticed that every screen or display awaited a password, and they were probably all different passwords at that.

But that's not why Luke needed the room. He put down the bag and dug out a fat wad of paper, from which he unfolded a sandwich and took a bite. He saw her close the door with stiff shoulders and diverted eyes and he tried to make light of it all so she would relax. "Sounds like you had a lot of fun."

Kess tried to speak evenly. "I have a right to unbiased counsel. Captain Solo promised—

Luke shrugged madly and talked through his bite. "What do you need counsel for? You're not being charged with anything?" He said it like the idea of it was insane.

Kess hardened her stare at him. "Master Luke, Captain Solo would have me in prison by now if he could! He made me spend the night in jail and he's writing this up as if the failure of the whole mission was my fault! And now with Sultani all _gone_ ," she inhaled a quivering breath and looked at her useless hands, "And there's nothing I can do to prove to them. There's... I—

"Kesselia." He yanked her attention out of her torment. When she finally looked at him, he softened his voice. "Find your peace."

She rubbed her lips together, closed her eyes, and quickly meditated away the worry; not well, but enough.

"First of all, let's get one thing straight." He took a bite, chewed fast, and swallowed it. His voice was quiet. "You called me Master just now." He squinted at her. "Are we still on?"

Kess blinked back, stuttering. "I'd _like_ to be, but I know I screwed up. I used a lightsaber against your instruction. I almost got you and your sister killed. I ruined a treaty…" She smirked sickly. "Shall I go on?"

Luke stared at nothing on the floor. Eventually, he shook his head. "That's not what I'm talking about."

When he peaked up his eyes to see her, she dropped hers to her feet and swallowed hard. Her face burned with embarrassment and shame.

Luke's voice was careful. "You ran off. And you were gone for hours. Did you quit?"

She tried to look at him but couldn't gather enough guts to do so. "No. I didn't quit. I guess I just..." She closed her eyes. _"I am so sorry_."

He nodded in thought and took another bite of his sandwich, shrugging it off. "All right. Save apologies for another time. We need to figure out how you got assigned to the _Falcon_."

Kess slumped against a terminal desk and closed her eyes. "I have no idea."

"I've seen the reports. I know what happened and it wasn't your fault. But we don't have a lot of time in here, so I want you to think very hard and start telling me anything about the Usak, the Frakkan mission, or your long-slumbering Force Sensitivity that you failed to mention."

Luke took the last bite of the sandwich that he was going to and put the remainder back in the wadded paper on the desk. He brushed the crumbs off his hands and folded his arms at his chest as he swallowed it.

Kess pursed her lips and eyed a blank spot in the air. She shrugged, "I didn't know there was a Frakkan System until we got there. I didn't know there was such a thing as an Usak until you told me the riddles. And I had no idea I was using the Force in my sleep. _Everything_ I've learned, I learned _after_ we left Yavin Base." She sighed through her nose and closed her eyes in frustration. "But nobody is going to believe that."

" _I_ believe you," he promised softly.

Her brown eyes peaked to him with hope. "You do?" It was strange how it seemed his faith was all that mattered to her.

Luke saw the sincerity in her face and the depths of her hopes blossoming for his approval. It didn't bounce off his defenses they way he thought it should. "Yes, I do." He grinned, flattered, and redirected his gaze to put away the last bit of his sandwich. He used the moment to close his eyes and meditate for a moment himself

When he opened them a second later, he was better. He turned back around and shifted to leave. "I've got an idea so follow my lead whether you like it or not."

"Yes, Master," she whispered, but her worry was lightened with revived confidence that Luke managed to give her only a few minutes. She followed him back into the office common. Soon, the Minister called the crowd back into the conference room.

 


	3. LL2 3 Reassignment

** LL       3         Reassignment **

Minister Dell André shuffled his feet to the chair at the head of the table and sat down again, reviewing a datapad as the crowd piled back into the room and sat down in silence. He glanced once at Kess over the rim of his spectacles and tossed down the datapad on the table. "Climbed thirty-five stories up an elevator shaft." He chuckled quietly, "Young energy."

"Yes, Minister," Kess whispered, not knowing how else to respond to the grandfather-like comment.

The Minister brought another datapad to his sights and pulled on his shaggy beard. Seeing that everyone was seated and the door was shut again, he folded his fingers in front of his face and looked across the table. "Commander Skywalker, what is your understanding of the term: Usak?"

"I think they are after a Jedi Apprentice," Luke said honestly. "I think that Kadaan is interested in any Force-sensitive person he can get his hands on, and the Usak is a code word they are using to smuggle as many potential apprentices to him as they can."

Kess' glanced at Luke and brightened with this new theory, She looked to the Minister for his reaction and saw him nodding with respect.

Admiral Ackbar put in, "With all due respect Commander, you haven't had much time to review the data."

Luke sat back in his chair. "I deduced this _before_ we were kidnapped. Nothing that happened changes my opinion on it. Admiral Cheenan was upset because he couldn't deliver any of us to Kadaan," he motioned to Kess, "the Usak included. And his people paid dearly for it. Nonetheless, if I'm right, Kadaan is going to keep coming after her until she attains full Jediship."

Lando draped an arm across his chair, "So Jedi training is still on then?"

Luke flicked his eyes to Lando and then to Kess. He hadn't realized how much information Kess was forced to include in her debrief report. Now he wondered how much she told them.

Admiral Tolgray motioned to a datapad, "According to the Lieutenant's report, you got into an argument that left her in a state of uncertainty about her training status."

Luke studied her a moment more before turning his eyes to the Admiral and realized it didn't matter how much she told them for he knew how to speak their language. "It's called 'discipline'," he reported to everyone. "Training is still on."

Kess' guilt swelled like a mushroom on the Force.

Leia redirected the conversation. "Training's on. Fine." She eyed Luke directly. "What do you need to continue it now that we're home?"

Luke opened his mouth… and then just spit it out. "Time, more than anything. And as much assurance as possible that someone's not going to nab her while she's out of my sight." He studied the table for a moment and looked up again, speaking to Admiral Ackbar, Leia, and Commander Tolgray, respectively. "I need to be excluded from missions away from here. I need to be excused from as many Council Meetings as possible, and I need to have the Lieutenant temporarily assigned to Rogue Group as a security measure until her training is complete."

Commander Tolgray eyed Kess for approval of the temp transfer. Dumbfounded, Kess reluctantly nodded, then, more honestly, shrugged at him.

As the wave of approvals muttered through the room, Kess thought about it and closed her eyes in a silent curse. _That slimo wants to be there so he can properly punish me for my temper._

Luke's sarcastic voice echoed in a dozen musical notes in her head. _You are so insightful._

"And the Usak?" Minister Dell André asked, "Should we continue to investigate?"

Luke thought for a moment as he chewed on the inside of his cheek and shrugged. "I don't think there's a reason to. We know that she's the Usak and we know the Usak is a code word that has something to do with the Force. I think that's all we need to know."

Leia agreed, "We'll ask the Frakkans directly when we open communications again. We should be hearing an apology soon. I'll send formal condolences regarding Sultani."

Admiral Ackbar started collecting his notes. "There's a Military Council meeting at thirteen hundred. Commander Skywalker and Captain Solo, your attendance is mandatory."

Leia browsed over notes. "Han, could you look for any new information on the standing of the Frakkan government? Find out when they are going to vote for a new governor."

Han started gathering his datacards, "Yes, your Highnessness."

The Minister of State left his notes on the table for someone else to clean up. "Leia, Luke, I need you both in my office as soon as you done here," he grumbled as he went to the other side door of the room, "so you can tell me what I'm supposed to say to the Ambassador of Cagharten."

Leia winced, "He's _still_ here?"

Everyone started moving as if someone had said 'dismissed'. Kess took the cue and filed out of the room with everyone else. Luke stood to talk to her again, but Commander Tolgray beat him to the punch and ushered Kess to a corner in the office common. Luke turned to other business in the meantime.

Kess straightened her shoulders at the Gold Group Commander and tried not to look guilty.

Tolgray shook his head at her and sighed an incredulous smile, "Lieutenant, I know I told you to show your colors but," he motioned to Jedi Skywalker in the back of the room, "this isn't what I had in mind."

Kess pressed a guilty grin.

More seriously, he lowered his voice even more. "Technically, you are still under my command, and I will help you in any means you need as your Commanding Officer, unbiased counsel, or even just some friendly advice, but here's some for free…" He gave her a cold, hard look. "Whether you are innocent or not does not neutralize the fact that the Empire wants you very badly and, therefore, your life, and all of the lives around you, are still in danger."

He paused long enough for that statement to sink in before continuing. "I wanted you to hear it from me that your Jedi training is probably the best way you can defend yourself... politically, militarily, and physically. If I were you, I'd follow Skywalker's Jedi orders to the letter, and I will support his _every_ request of assistance in regards to your training."

Her eyes looked up, wondering if the Commander noticed his own hypocrisy.

"I am telling you these things because I want you to be fully aware that there are a lot of people watching you right now, and not all of them are friends. I don't want you to start trusting your enemies, and I know, _right now_ , you can't tell which ones are which. Do we understand each other, Lieutenant?"

Kess drew in her lips and nodded. "Yes, sir."

Commander Tolgray smiled again. "May the Force be with you and have a good day. I'll tell Shorkey you said hello."

Kess gave him a weak smile and watched him leave the office. Before she soaked in everything Commander Tolgray said, Commander Skywalker stepped up and looked her in the eye. "Ground rules," he said, firm and quiet. "No Jedi questions on duty; no duty questions during training. And that goes for both of us. On occasion, I will _quietly_ remind you to act like a Jedi during duty, but that will be it. All right?"

Kess leaned her shoulder to the wall, looked at the ground, and nodded obediently.

His voice softened with a kindness. "Go home. Get some rest. Unpack. Have an ale with your friends at the Mash Pit or something… _relax_. I'll stop by later."

Kess mulled it over for a minute and looked up again to speak, but stopped.

Luke patiently waited for her to ask.

She let her words out, "What about when we're not on duty _or_ training?"

Blue eyes considered that briefly before giving her a solid look. "If we're not on duty, we _are_ training." He turned to back to the conference room without further discussion. "See you later."

* * *

Kess stopped by Pad 9 to talk to Shorkey about the continued temp transfer and a little to Kayla, who did a great job filling in the Deck Supervisor position in Kess' absence. She walked away from smoothly running group wondering if they noticed she was gone.

She then went to the security office to collect her duffel bag, but it took a long conversation with the security chief about her release and by whose authority she was permitted to walk around free. After that, she went to the Ditty Bag store to refresh her toiletry supplies, stopped by the grocer because she knew Yana and Joanne didn't keep a supply of sweetwater in the cold storage, and then ended up at the Mash Pit to have an ale by herself.

Early on a Primeday afternoon, few sentients filled the tables, and only an elderly woman of some green-skinned species sat at the bar. The droid set a sloppily-filled mug in front of Kess and went away without a beep. Kess felt an odd comfort being back at the little urban hunting lodge. She reminisced about Kayla dragging her in here to try to pick up men. That was sure to be happening again this coming Zhellday now that Kess was back, but she felt even less like chasing men now than she did before.

Kess had been gone over a month. She straightened her shoulders and thought again: _two_ months. And everything seemed so different now. Kess glanced over her shoulder to their favorite table. The last time she was in here, she was debating with the girly girls about whether or not Luke Skywalker would even be attending the trip.

She remembered how Luke's sarcastic voice had echoed in a dozen musical notes in her head. _You are so insightful._

She would have never guessed the Jedi Knight would talk with sarcasm in his voice. Thoughtfully, she turned to look at her reflection in the decorated bar mirror, remembering her relief when she saw him standing on his own two feet, awake. She smiled and took a swig of ale.

_I need to have the Lieutenant temporarily assigned to Rogue Group._

_That slimo wants to be there so he can properly punish me for my temper._

_You are so insightful._

Kess bit her lower lip. So he _did_ know she had occasional fits of temper while she worked on the _Falcon_.

But _how_ did he know?

_"How did you know my name was Kesselia?"_

_Luke stopped chewing and plucked his shoulder from the wall. "I looked at your security check results this morning."_

Except that she hadn't been through a security check yet.

_No one had called her Kesselia since she was knee high to a Jawa. Someone in Intelligence must really like their job._

Kess stared at the memories in the air in front of her. Her lips parted with shock, insult, and a brand new flavor of embarrassment.

_Have an ale with your friends at the Mash Pit…_

Kess never told Luke about the Mash Pit.

_You're my first apprentice. And I know you better than you think._

Her eyes dropped closed.

_If you were unarmed, you wouldn't have lasted that long._

Her brows knotted and her mouth drew in tight to cuss, "You son of a bantha."

 


	4. LL2 4 Clumsy Roommate

** LL2       4         Clumsy Roommate **

Kess reached her barracks apartment late in the day. Late enough to find Yana and Joanne already home from work when she walked in the door.

Yana was barefoot and cooking up some kind of dinner in the kitchenette. Her chestnut hair bounced in a fluffy ponytail as she moved around. "Welcome home," Yana turned and deliberately _looked for it_ on Kess' hip. Yana smiled.

Joanne popped her head out the bedroom door. White teeth flashed from a dark-skinned face, "Hey girly girl!"

Kess gave them a token smile and a depressed hello. She began tearing off her dress uniform upon entering the apartment and was half-naked by the time she plopped down on the couch. She blew up at her bangs and slouched.

Yana stood in front of her, her words already weighted. "How was your trip?"

Tired eyes met Yana's, knowing what the woman was staring at. "Educational."

Joanne curiously sat down in the easy chair. "Educational?" She echoed. "Did Skywalker go?" Then Joanne saw the lightsaber as well. First, she squinted at it, then she grinned at it, then she narrowed her eyes at Kess. "What is that thing hanging off your belt?"

"You got some ' _splaining_ to do, young lady," Yana warned.

Joanne leaned forward to look at it, "Is it his?"

Kess glared at Joanne from under her eyebrows. "No, you fool, it's mine."

Joanne whined, "You mean to tell me you leave on a repair-in-air and you come back—

"With her meat hooks in the most prized bachelor of the fleet." Yana accused and turned back to the kitchen. "Kayla will be proud."

A twinkle sparked in Joanne's eye. "Can I see it?"

Without a thought, Kess pulled off her lightsaber and handed it over. "Kayla is proud. I saw her today on the pad."

**_SNAP-VROOM!_ **

The sound echoed loudly against the apartment walls. Yana jumped and turned. Joanne was looking up and down the yellow blade with awe. Kess saw them both and smiled like and seasoned parent. "Don't touch anything with the blade."

Joanne dropped the blade from the air a little and gave her a look of insult. "Duh."

Yana turned back to dinner, showing no more curiosity about Kess' trip. Kess bit her tongue. Yana wouldn't ask about events she knew Kess probably couldn't discuss. Yana worked in the Command Center where everything was a secret and personnel were trained to only ask questions on a need to know basis. Kess realized just how much Yana never talked about her day at work. As a result, the girly girls were subconsciously trained not to ask her.

Now, Kess and Yana had something in common, but Kess still had to ask, even if Yana denied it under a shroud of Alliance security.

"Do you ever talk to Skywalker in the bunker?"

Yana glanced over her shoulder. "Why?"

Kess pulled her body off the couch. "Have you ever mentioned our Mash Pit night to him? Or my real name? Or anything like that?"

Yana looked at her. "What _is_ your real name?"

They exchanged harsh expressions, but understanding ones. Yana couldn't even confirm she talked to Luke from time to time, and Kess understood that it was worse not being able to talk about it than it was not being able to hear about it.

Kess leaned a hip against the counter. "He seemed to know more information about me than any report would have included. I was wondering if he got any of that information from you, that's all."

Yana bit her lips and inhaled long and slow to formulate a safe answer. "I can tell you that Commander Skywalker and I have never had a conversation of a personal nature about anybody." She gave Kess a look that she was hoping that sliver answered Kess' question enough. Kess nodded thankfully.

 ** _Hissss_**.

"Oh snot!" Joanne cussed. The smell of burning plastic permeated the air and the lightsaber blade sucked back into its hilt. Kess and Yana turned.

Joanne squinted at a cauterized wound and missing chunk from the top of the black drink table.

Yana swore a complaint. "What did you do? Look at this! It melted right through the table!"

"I didn't realize it was that long," Joanne whined.

Kess' shoulders melted. She reached a hand out to Joanne, who, wilting like a puppy dog in trouble, handed the hilt back.

"It's gonna take six months to requisition us another table," Yana complained. "And _you_ get to do the paperwork, girly girl."

Kess picked up her duffel and went to her room to unpack and take a shower. Joanne moped guiltily at Yana as the brunette glared at her on the way back to the kitchenette.

A half hour later, Yana was loading the dishwasher and Joanne was at the comm terminal doing her homework. "What kind of a table is it?"

The doorbell buzzed.

Yana wiped her hands on a rag and called out with annoyance as she moved across the room to let Kayla in. "It's a standard issue, one-metre, black-lacquer, drink-table, just like _everybody_ else's."

Joanne squinted at the requisition form on the terminal screen. "What should I put for the cause of damage?"

Yana hit the door control with her elbow. "Tell them you turned to the Clumsy Side with your roommate's lightsaber." But when Yana looked over her shoulder to greet the visitor, it wasn't Kayla. Yana caught herself and pressed a pleasant greeting. "Hello, Commander."

Luke nodded back, "Lieutenant."

He inhaled to ask for Kess, but Yana turned away from the door to let him in. "Kess! Company!" She hustled back to the kitchenette to finish the dishes.

Luke stepped inside and shut the door behind him. He shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked on his heels at the door. The Jedi Knight was not accustomed to visiting a female barracks suite.

Joanne's fingers paused on the keyboard with her black eyes affixed on the Jedi.

"Troubles?" He said with a minuscule grin.

She glanced at the screen, then peeled herself from the chair with a sweetly, terrified smile. "Well, you can't _honestly_ tell me you haven't _accidentally_ bumped a few inanimate objects with your lightsaber. Right?"

Luke smiled and started—

Kess came out of her room with a handful of hanging clothes in her finger and a chilly attitude in the angle of her shoulders, "Do stormtroopers count?"

Luke's eyes narrowed at Kess bitchy mood.

Joanne's dark skin paled. She slid her feet away, her voice warped from a clenched throat. "I'm going to my room now."

Luke blinked away Kess' mood and turned to Joanne with friendly support. "What did you hit?"

Yana pointed at the drink table in the middle of her movements.

Joanne paused at her bedroom door, watching Luke stroll over and peer at the drink table. Luke gave Joanne friendly grin, "I've seen worse."

Kess appeared at his side. "Really?" Her voice carried no humor. "What?"

Luke evenly fought back, secretly clenching his prosthetic hand in his pocket. "I don't think that is nearly as important as why she had it in the first place."

Joanne retreated. "Yep. I am going into my room now."

Yana put the hand towel down on the counter, peering at the other two. "Yeah, I think I will too."

"No," Luke told them and eyed Kess hard. "Can I buy you in a hot cup across the street?"

Her head rocked on her neck as she spoke. "It that the politically-correct way of saying, 'We need to talk?'"

Luke's glare hardened to scolding. He answered firmly, "Yes."

As if slapped with an order, Kess set her chin and went back into her bedroom. Luke saw her through the angle of the open door as she sat on the foot of the bed and pulled on a pair of brown boots. Her long hair fell over her shoulder as she pulled the sleeves of her pants down over the boots and she hastily flung the hair back out of the way. She wrapped a utility belt over the waist of her jeans and attached the lightsaber to its hitch. She grabbed her credit chip and identichip and stuffed them in the front pocket of a scarlet blouse. In her casual civvies, the lightsaber didn't seem to fit the picture.

Luke chewed on the inside of his cheek as he waited for her and watched with disapproval when she marched out of the bedroom. She passed him and punched open the front door.

With a sigh, he strolled to the front door and followed her out, pausing long enough to wave behind him. "Nice to meet you."

Joanne was peering out her bedroom door. Yana eyed them from the kitchenette. When the front door shut, the roommates met each other's widened eyes.


	5. LL2 5 The Day You Graduate

** LL2      5         The Day You Graduate **

As soon as the elevator door slid closed, Luke spat a whine at her. "What is the matter now?"

She folded her arms at her chest and met his eye. "How long did you watch me before we met in fencing class?"

Luke caught his breath and lowered a stiff chin. He met her stare for a moment before admitting it. "A year."

Kess dropped her arms, sneering at him. "A _year?"_ Then, as the elevator door opened, she sneered at the door. Open-mouthed shock stuck on her face as she stormed out to the hall then stormed back toward him. "How in a black hole did you watch me for a _year_ without me knowing about it?"

Luke stuffed his hands into his pockets and strolled out of the building, pretending to ignore her tantrum. "I watched you through the Force and only on a rare occasion. I didn't watch anything personal," he promised. "I was just trying to find out if you were Force-sensitive and if you had the mindset to be a Jedi."

His boots clicked quietly on the sidewalk. Night on the jungle moon was warm and wet. An occasional streetlight lit the sidewalk and an occasional speeder passed them on the quiet street. It was good to be home.

Her hell-bent, offended eyes stared at him as he walked. "What exactly _did_ you watch?"

His voice was calm, understanding that she had good reason to be upset about it. "Most of the time, I watched you at work. Sometimes at fencing class, and sometimes at the Mash Pit." He shrugged hard, "I was trying to find out how you dealt with _life_. How you reacted to daily stresses, thing like that. If you knew I was looking at you for an apprentice, you would have changed your habits."

Her pace slowed to walk next to him as they crossed the street toward the block behind the Admin Building and the Security office. Street lamps glowed on benches and dotted the wide sidewalk. The running track and a crooked set of bleachers lay empty and dark. Kess shot a glance at the building she slept in the night before. This 'infallible' and 'heroic' family of Skywalker/Solos were starting to get on her nerves!

Kess exhaled in disbelief and whimpered, "A whole blasted year?"

Luke eyed her. "It's not like you didn't have the same opportunity. How many years have you been tracking my movements through the media?"

Kess shot him a look but admitted it anyway, "Since the Battle of Yavin."

"Eight years," he clarified and looked down at her again. "I think we're even."

Kess blew up at her bangs.

Luke declared it strongly. "I _have_ not, and I _will_ not, watch you now that we've met in person. You have my word."

They reached the Hot Shop and went inside. It was a small, one-room restaurant with a counter and four tables. The droid took their orders and began brewing up the requested concoctions.

Kess turned to him. "What made you start watching me?"

"Obi-Wan pointed you out." The steamy cups arrive on the counter and he took his, leading the way back out of the tiny, hut-like building.

She took her cup and followed him back out to the empty walk. "Which one was Obi-Wan?"

"My first Jedi Master," he reminded her. "Sometimes, he points me in the right direction when I get stuck. I knew I had to start thinking about training someone, but I had no idea where to start, so, during a meditation, he opened up a window in the Force and it focused on you."

Kess sipped the chocolaty drink and plopped down on a bench. She tried to recount duty and social events that happened to her over the past year. "So it was _your_ master who chose me as your first apprentice."

Luke shrugged. "You could look at it that way." He sat down sideways on the park bench and pulled up a knee in front of him so he could face her. "I apologize. I should have found a more direct way to investigate you."

Brown eyes shifted to him, "A _security check_ would have been a thought."

Luke started to smile. "You're right." He took a sip of his cup and looked at a blank spot on the bench seat. "You're right," he muttered again.

Tension tightened between them. Kess tried to shake it off her shoulders and changed the subject, "So, anything new about the Usak?"

Luke's eyes flicked back up to her.

"Are you guys going to be able to salvage that treaty?" She chuckled wryly, "Am I going to spend any more nights in jail?"

His eyes seemed to soften a little, but they darted to the ground. "Nothing new."

With novice Force senses, Kess could feel the conversation thicken, and she stood up to avoid his heavy stare. She stopped two paces away and shuffled her feet. She sipped her cup again.

His tone lowered. "I didn't come here to talk about the treaty or the Usak, and you know it."

Kess gritted her teeth at the embarrassment of this hitting her again. She shrugged dramatically. "I was evil, okay? I acted on emotions rather than peace," she admitted with one of his fine Jedi quotes. She looked up at the starry night and forced herself to admit it out loud, "I made a mistake and didn't get the chance to apologize for pissing you off. So. Now: I'm sorry. I screwed up. And you're right." She swung around to him and met his eyes. "Okay? Can we drop it now? Like you wanted to in the first place?"

Luke smiled at her outburst. "You didn't piss me off, Kess." He looked at her with sincerity. "You scared me."

Her lip curled, " _I_ scared _you_?"

He sipped gingerly and turned to her as she sat back down on the bench. "I'm going to be honest with you, Kess," he explained easily. "All of the Jedi Masters are dead, even the ones who trained me. And they died before they could teach me a fraction of what I needed to know. Except for Supreme Prophet Kadaan and his dark pupils, there are _no other_ _Jedi_ besides me."

Kess' eyes flickered with the weight of that reality.

Luke continued. "I have the records from Dathomir, but as I said before, I've only been through about thirty percent of them. Still, most of them are fact records: who trained, who graduated, who failed. There's very little about the actual training, about rules and regulations and customs and," he grinned as he said it, voicing the absurdity of the phrase, " _mating rituals_..." He smiled more, his voice curling to a whine, "You came trampling over a subject that I know _very_ little about in Jedi practices and you scared me because I didn't know what to _do_ about it!"

Her mind chewed on that. She grinned sheepishly at her cup. "I take it you and Obi-Wan never had this problem?"

Luke paused to fight his laughter. "What I _do_ know is that you still have a lot of work in controlling all of your emotions, not just that one. Now what kind of Jedi Master would I be if I let that one slide just because I might benefit from it?"

Kess smiled shyly at the concrete, uncomfortably happy that the forbidden subject was no longer forbidden, at least for the moment. She pulled the snapshot of the moment out of her memory. Her chest quivered with a hidden chuckle, "But the look on your face was priceless."

Luke smiled, a little embarrassed too, "I'm sure it was." His eyes drifted back into his own memory and came back to the present. "Look, this is as much of a learning process for me as it is for you. I'm going to make just as many mistakes as you are. You're my lab rat apprentice. So, bear with me. The subject you're studying is more extensive than you can comprehend right now, and it's more powerful than you can imagine. And any microscopic mistake can send you barreling down a path that I won't necessarily be able to pull you from. Now, I'll do anything in my power to prevent that… but you have to work at it too. You have to be a strong even if I'm not standing next to you."

Her smile sobered appropriately. "Yeah, I understand." She soaked in all that he said, but the way she read it, he was also saying that he wasn't interested. His words felt like he viciously ripped a bandage off her heart. He dismissed her too easily. "You really don't have any emotions, do you?"

Luke swallowed. His was a quieter mutter, "I have enough to feel insulted."

Her eyes went to him, surprised she would have so much power, and when she saw his offended eyes and slanted brows, she realized that she did. Her lips parted then pressed together again. "I'm sorry," she said sincerely. "I really did hear all you said. I guess I just—

Kess winced again and wrapped her arms around herself. She just wanted to implode.

Luke diverted his eyes while she back-pedaled. "Do you mind if I make an observation?"

Kess sipped her paper mug and stared at nothing in the air. She nodded even though she knew she didn't want to hear it.

He put one hand on his knee. "You have a crush on a superhero you saw on the vid."

Kess closed her eyes.

"But he doesn't exist," he added gently.

Her eyes peeled open and glanced in his direction.

"I'm not the man you think I am." He let that hang in the air a moment. "But I _hope_... when you get to know the man I really am, you'll respect me just as much."

She crossed her arms protectively at her chest, still holding the mug in one hand. She tried to peek over and found him staring back at her.

With a weak grin, he shrugged the truth of it.

She shifted more his direction. "Will you please do me a favor?"

Happy to feel the weight start to lift from the conversation, his head tilted, "What?"

"You watched me for a year. Can you tell me some secret about you so I'm not," she smiled painfully, "feeling so exposed?"

He ducked a grin and licked the drink from his lips. He nodded, thought a long moment, and breathed out a smile, "How about if I tell you something we have in common?"

She gave him a double take. "We have a lot in common."

"Yeah, but," he motioned to her, "you don't know this one. And I wouldn't know it if I hadn't watched you."

She shrugged. "Okay."

He tapped his fingers on the back of the bench and angled his chin to admit it with almost a blush, "My friends and family harass me about finding a date as bad as your friends harass you."

A brow rose and pulled out a grin. "You're kidding."

Luke shook his head honestly at her.

"I'm surprised you'd have so much trouble."

He shrugged, "My family tree keeps getting in the way."

She grinned crazier, "Why would people avoid risking having the Councilor as a sister-in-law? She's not _that_ bad."

Luke closed his eyes and smiled at the humor her misunderstanding. "It's kind of a long story."

His easy humor was dissolving her discomfort. "That must be one hell of a story."

"Uh… yeah." Luke said, trying to put his humor away. "That reminds me. I wanted to talk to you about your grandfather. I looked up the name Lendra in the archives, but I didn't find anything. How sure are you that he went to the Jedi Academy?"

A devious grin grew across her face, "His name wasn't 'Lendra.'"

Blue eyes perked, "It wasn't?"

"No. It was my _mother's_ father." She bounced her head back and forth with the cadence of her speech. "Thus the _K_. in Kesselia K _._ Lendra?"

Luke cocked his head with a grin of defeat, "All right, so what does the K. stand for?"

Her smile went from devious to perverse, "You didn't look it up in my _security check_?"

Luke chewed the inside of his cheek but didn't look away or defend himself.

Kess sipped her drink and chuckled, "Four, three. I win."

He stopped trying to hide his smile.

He stared at her for a long minute as she laughed with fake victory at him. He realized the training kept tripping on this rift of discontentment and he thought of an idea that might keep it from becoming a problem again.

Of course, that was only part of the reason; the rest of him just wanted to. He licked his lips and chose his words carefully before speaking, "I would be honored if you would let me take you out to dinner."

Kess' head jerked. She tried to swallow her big smile. She tried to shush the warm fuzz growing in her chest. She was complimented. She was honored. She was blushing. Her mouth opened, but no words came. Before she thought of the right, properly-flirtatious response, he spoke again.

" _The day you graduate from training_." He carefully pronounced every word and watched her shock drift into embarrassment. "Until then, pacify it like it's any other emotion. All right?"

Kess laughed and tried to calm her beating pulse. She didn't want to, but she knew she had to. She nodded at her lap, still smiling, trying to sigh off the buzz.

His smile grew smug. "One, love. Your serve."

Kess laughed loud in the dark, park-like block of Yavin Base, unsure how to take what he said, wanting to leap with joy at it, except that she had to pacify it like any other emotion. Trapped with gurgling indecision, sparkling eyes looked at him.

Luke leaned toward her with wide, comical eyes and pointed to the short bleachers and gravel oval not far from where they sat. "Right there, on the grinder, ready to run, at 0500."

"You don't have an ocean to threaten me with anymore."

"No." He pointed toward a wall of jungle that, oddly enough, had not been cleared out for some building, "I have a muddy, slimy, snake-ridden swamp."

"You wouldn't dare."

A sparkle shined in his firm blue eyes, "Wouldn't I?"

Kess smiled and gave in. "Okay, you would." Her hot cup was sweet and rich, the wet jungle smelled like life in full bloom, and her tension melted away back to the casual, innocent flirting that she knew would never get her anywhere.

Luke stood up and tossed his empty cup into a nearby bin. He turned to her and slid his hands into his front pockets.

Kess tossed her empty cup into the bin behind his and met him face to face on the sidewalk. "Well," she breathed, "I'd better go get some sleep." She looked up at him. "I've got to be up early, apparently."

Luke looked at his feet and back up again. "Good night."

With a little reluctance, she turned toward the south row of barracks, "Good night."

Luke started to watch her go, then looked at the concrete and started to stroll to the north row of barracks.

Kess stopped and spun around, "Um, Commander?"

Luke jerked to a stop. From 'Master', to 'Luke', to 'Commander', from the same person? Luke himself was getting a little confused.

"What's the uniform of the day in your Rogue Group?"

Luke shoved it all back into perspective. "Wear khakis," he swiveled on his heels to go away, "but bring a jumpsuit."

She turned away with, "Yes, sir," and watched him go a moment more before going home.

 


	6. LL2 6 Welcome to Rogue Group

**LL2       6         Welcome to Rogue Group **

Morning muster always carried a special electricity in the moods of service members on any pad, not just this one, but to Kess, Pad 14 was very different. All of the faces were strangers and none of the tales involved any names she knew. It was like jumping into a soap opera in the middle of a plot. Kess sat in the back of the muster room trying to look unimportant. From across the big audience, she saw Luke step in from the side door leading to the managers' office. He paused to chat with another Commander and a Lt. Commander, both human men. Few seemed to notice him until he hopped onto the short, little stage, and shooed the yeoman away from the podium.

Everybody whooped out a mocking cheer.

Luke suppressed a shy grin, held up a hand to calm them down, and went directly into the business of running the top dog squadron of the New Alliance Fleet.

He was dressed in clean khakis, a uniform she had not yet seen him in until today. Four blue dots on the silver square flaunted his Commander rank and, on the stiff collar, he wore a humble Jedi pin. He wore a blaster on one hip and a lightsaber on the other. Kess noted that there were two personalities standing at that podium. She smiled at her lap as she thought that there were really three, but the farm boy was simply not represented in his daily attire.

Muster consisted of requesting status reports from everyone and warning the group to be prepared for maneuvers in short order. He concluded the monotone announcements without even looking for her in the crowd. "Lt. Lendra, report to the managers' office. All others proceed to duty. That is all." He patted the podium and turned away.

At once, fifty people stood and began talking. Kess wove through the crowd out the door and followed the wall to the managers' office at the end. In proper military fashion, she set herself at parade rest just inside the front door, perfectly patient to observe as much as she could before someone called on her.

Just like Gold Group's set up, the office had just enough space to fit five desks. On the left would be the Wing Leader and Group Leader and on the right, just inside the discolored, transparisteel window to the travel way, sat the Repair Supervisor and Repair Manager. At the far end, the desk most prominently placed was for the Group Commander.

Many of the stuffed shirts that sat at such a desk had medals and plaques hanging on the back wall and as much of the name and title typed into the holographic nameplate as would fit, but not here. Except for a piece of paper that listed data codes tacked near his terminal, the wall was bare and the holoplate lit up with only one word: **SKYWALKER**.       

A black-haired Commander strutted in the side door with Luke at his heels."...that you always end up in medbay after a vacation." He plopped into the chair behind the Group Leader's desk and went right to work at the terminal.

Kess snuck a peek at the Group Leader's holoplate: **CMDR WEDGE ANTILLES**

Luke strolled behind the 'big' desk and dropped his muster datapad with a complaint, "When was the last time I went on a 'vacation'?"

Commander Antilles paused, eyes hung on the air as he thought a moment, then threw a mildly smart-ass comment over his shoulder, "Does this quiz count against my grade?"

Luke grinned tightly, "My case rests." He sat down at his nearly naked desk and clasped his hands together in front of him. He glanced once at Kess, hardly noting that she was here amidst observing all the other activity.

A flurry of movement continued to fill the room. Three engineers filed in and simultaneously dug through the drawers of the Repair Sup's desk until one found what they needed and buzzed out again. The blue-skinned Wing Leader got on the comm and Commander Antilles tapped fast and furious at his terminal. A pilot came in to hand something to Antilles and left again.

Everyone buzzed with work like this was normal. It _looked_ normal. But Kess could feel an extra jolt of energy because the Group Commander was back at his desk to see it all.

Luke didn't login at his terminal to see what mail stacked up. He didn't look at the data cards piled in his inbox. He just sat there, hands easily clasped, elbows resting on the dinged up desk in front of him. His shoulders rested with a slight slump watch it all with unlimited patience. He looked like he was waiting for someone to remember to bring him his java juice.

Kess already knew him better than that. Luke was up to something.

As if to confirm that, her Force senses prickled at Luke's growing spikes of deviousness. The activity around him gradually amplified in response to his return and yet the bodies and reports continued to ignore him as if he wasn't there. His eyes began to sparkle. His tongue shoved into a molar in the back of his mouth when he faked a sleepy stretch and leaned back deeply into that squeaky desk chair.

Kess' bewilderment must have shown in her face because Commander Antilles, incidentally facing her way instead of Skywalker's, caught her expression. His fingers paused on the keyboard to watch her face a moment more.

Kess met the Commander Antilles' eyes in silence (as she was still at parade rest and not yet called upon), but she turned her eyes back to the Group Commander, perplexed at what Luke was up to.

Apparently, Commander Antilles didn't need to look over his shoulder to see what Commander Skywalker was up to. His shoulders wilted and his dark eyes popped to the ceiling with irritation. "Can't you at least have a cup of java first?"

Luke smirked with pride, meeting Kess' eyes probably because she was the only one new enough to be watching him with such clear bafflement. He continued to lean back in his chair and blindly reached for the little wall panel not far from his desk—

Just then, a gray-haired Lieutenant Commander with age lines cracking his olive face rushed into the room for the Repair Manager's desk. His worn khaki sleeves rolled to his elbows (out-of-uniform) and big forearms hugged a dozen datapads to his chest. The LC dumped his datacards in a hurry and reached over Skywalker's desk to stop the GC's hand from reaching the wall panel.

Luke interrupted his own original intent and dropped is hands into his lap instead. He smiled (busted) and grinned innocently as the LC ranted at him.

The LC wagged a finger at the Jedi. "No, no, no, Commander, _you promised me_!"

Luke's aimed a finger-blaster across the room at Kess. "Lt. Commander Jer Neilson, Lt. Kess Lendra." Skywalker folded his arms at his chest and set his elbows on his desk so the two could say hellos without his distraction. "Don't say I never brought you back anything from vacation."

Neilson turned to find the stranger standing at parade rest. Kess met his eye, ignorant but attentive. Neilson gave Luke a bit of a double take but took the whole thing in hurried stride. He stomped to Kess and offered a strong handshake. The old grease monkey blocked Kess' view of Luke entirely. "Welcome aboard. Any experience with Incom?"

Kess nodded fast and rattled off a bit of her resume. "BTLs the last year with Gold. Some T65s on the _Mon Taraka_ during BoE. Before that, it was all freighters and astromechs."

Neilson motioned her to follow to the empty desk. "So you _have_ worked on X-wings."

Kess stepped over, shrugging one shoulder. "Battle of Endor, as I said, so only enough to slap a port cover and about-face them back to work without a full supper."

"5 by 5." Neilson flicked a brow as hunched over to fidget with the nameplate. "How do you spell it?"

Kess leaned over Neilson leaning over the Repair Supervisor's desk to see he was typing her name into the holoplate "L-E-N-D-R-A. I was a _Deck Sup_ with Gold Group." She poked her head out from Neilson's big shoulders to eye Luke on this one.

"I was killing two mynocks with one shot," Skywalker said. "Congratulations on your promotion."

Unsure whether to take this as a compliment or a curse, she struggled between arguing with Commander / Master / Skywalker / Luke or discussing this with the fellow grease monkey and new direct report, Neilson—

Neilson stood in front of her again, blocking her view of the Commander again, and shoved specific datapads into her hands. "How fast can you do a ship stat report?"

"Um…" Her eyes turned up to Neilson, uncertain to point this out but said it anyway. "I just got here."

Neilson looked her in the eye and shook his head with a gritty grin. His eyes motioned for Kess to look over his shoulder at what the Commander was doing behind his back. "Is he reaching for the GQ button again?"

Kess shifted her weight to sneak a peek (as if that would hide from the Jedi that she was peeking) and indeed saw Luke's again reached back over his shoulder for a button on the wall panel.

She quickly hid behind Neilson and whispered fast and quiet. " _But we're_ _not in_ _battle_."

Neilson grinned sickly, his voice low. "Welcome to Rogue Group."

Neilson marched out of the room, leaving Kess' unblocked to stare, eyes bulging, as Luke's smirked smugly back at her. His finger depressed the button on the wall and the cacophony began.

**_BZZT BLAAH BZZT BLAAH_ **

**_General Quarters. General Quarters. All hands man your battle stations._ **

**_BZZT BLAAH BZZT BLAAH_ **

Wedge rolled his eyes, grabbed a datapad and jumped out of his seat. The blue-faced wing leader, Teak, slipped out passed Kess like an eel.

**_BZZT BLAAH BZZT BLAAH_ **

**_General Quarters. General Quarters. All hands man your battle stations._ **

**_BZZT BLAAH BZZT BLAAH_ **

Kess jumped and scrambled for what she should do in her new position. What would Shorkey do? But she didn't know anyone's name, much less which craft were ready to fly. She found the deck reports in her hand—

Her eyes landed on Luke again as he stood slowly from his chair like he was getting ready for a morning stroll.

**_BZZT BLAAH BZZT BLAAH_ **

**_General Quarters. General Quarters. All hands man your battle stations._ **

**_BZZT BLAAH BZZT BLAAH_ **

Without meeting her eyes, he flicked his lightsaber hilt off his belt, spun it once in the flat of his palm, and clipped it back on his hip again.

 _5 by 5_ , Kess thought... _Slimo_.   

Kess closed her eyes a split second, spun around, and _shoved_ the Commander's body out of her way and into the wall so she could rush out of the room to her station.

Luke fell against the door jam and bit down on his own laugh so no one would see it.

 

 

 


	7. LL2 7 Jedi Training Grounds

** LL2       7         Jedi Training Grounds **

When knock off rattled over the loud speaker, no one stopped to listen what it said. The tired crew buzzed with a recharge of energy and half the population of base seemed to be on the streets by the time Kess strolled out to the sidewalk. The gas giant glowed warm and red over the steaming jungle, lighting the white sidewalks and brightening the green of the mowed grass. Among the pedestrian masses, Kess spotted Kayla and Joanne on the busy sidewalk and joined them. "Hey, girlies."

Kayla ran her fingers through yellow hair and turned to Kess. "Hi, girly girl. Why aren't you training with your Jedi Legend?"

Kess shrugged. "He went home so I'm gonna go home and see if he comms." It was clear in her tone that she felt like she'd been stood up.

Joanne's dimple deepened in her right cheek. "How was you first day with Rogue Group?"

Kess whined childishly, "He made me a Repair Supervisor!"

Joanne searched for a clue, "That's _good_. Isn't it?"

Kess stomped her combat boot and yelled. "And then called a GQ drill _two seconds later!"_

Kayla laughed.

Kess slumped. She scrambled with the rest of her new team to finish the ship stat report and launch the pilots, but Kess could hardly believe the contents of the report itself. Shorkey would have never let half those ships hit the air in that condition for a boring rover watch, much less GQ drills or combat maneuvers. Kess had neither the time nor the status to argue that to Neilson, but she would never feel comfortable about sending up a spacecraft without, for example, _shields_.

Kayla was talking about a party coming up and Joanne was responding with excited nods. The pair strolled down the sidewalk and Kess dragged her boots to follow.

A few blocks later, the airbrakes of a speeder roared to a stop behind them. All three girlies, and every other pedestrian in the vicinity, jumped out of the way. Parked halfway on the sidewalk was a glossy red Canali 250. The sporty vehicle had its top down in the daylight and purring engines on its haunches. Luke stood up in the driver's seat and propped his elbows on the windshield, already showered and in civvies. "Where are you going?"

"Home to change." She thumbed over her shoulder. "You left early so I-"

"Get in." He waved a silent hello to her staring friends and plopped back down in the driver's seat.

Kayla's flirtatious voice sang through the air. "Good afternoon, Commander. I take it we'll be missing Kess for our evening meal?"

"Save her some leftovers," Luke called his lack of intention loud and clear.

Kess waved a goodbye to her friends as they strolled away. She stepped to the vehicle. "Shouldn't I get cleaned up first?"

Luke slid back into the driver seat and reached for the belts. "You're just going to get dirty again."

Kess climbed in and strapped in. " _You_ got cleaned up."

Luke shifted into gear, "I'm not the apprentice," and hit the accelerator.

The Canali 250 jumped into traffic and zipped through the streets. Kess was white-knuckled by the time he tore around the corner to leave the base. He slowed to turn again onto a dirt road and sped up even faster into the jungle. She glanced at him to see if he was angry. His stolid eyes flicked from the gauges to the bumpy road with precision. Whether he was using the Force or he already memorized the road, he seemed to prepare for every curve before it appeared in the trees in front of them.

The road curved to a straight away aimed for Toban Ridge and Luke just sped up. The rocky, hundred metre cliff loomed closer until Kess could see where the road came to a dead end. She sat in breathless suspense until Luke slammed on the airbrakes and roared to a stop. The nose of that preciously expensive speeder was hardly a metre from the first giant boulder of the cliff.

Luke shut off the power and hopped out, "You need to work harder on controlling fear." He popped open the trunk and dug his arms inside. "Next time I'll go faster."

Kess climbed out slowly and rubbed her hands together to get the blood pumping again. "Do you _fly_ like that?"

"Yeah," Luke handed her a paper bag and grinned. "That's why I'm so good at it."

"I think you just like making people panic." Kess looked around at the wild jungle around them. The weather was hot and wet today. "Do you always call GQ the moment you get back from a trip? Or was that just on my account?"

He ripped the zipper open on his jacket and peeled it off his arms. "No duty questions during training." He stripped down to a khaki tank top and threw his jacket into the speeder. Without a glance her way, he pulled and anchor-colored duffel bag onto his shoulder and hiked into the trees.

Kess followed him, wishing she were in civvies too so she could strip off these sweaty, greasy coveralls. He moved along a footpath for a full minute until the jungle peeled away to a large fallen log and an empty space beyond it. The ridge loomed almost invisibly on the right and a big patch of grass filled the back half of a hundred-square-metres of a clearing.

Luke straddled the log and dropped the duffel to the ground on the other side. With a wave of his hand in the open air, he announced, "Jedi training grounds. What do you think?"

Kess stepped to the log with a growing smile. It was a peaceful hole in an otherwise wild mess and it was beautiful. Birds chirped in the green canopy, the wind sang over the ridge and a stream gurgled out of sight. The ground next to the fallen log was already beaten into a hard-packed mud. Luke must come here a lot.

"This place is fantastic." She swooned, swinging both legs over to sit on the log. "How far away from base are we?"

Luke dug into the duffel and started pulling out two box meals as he spoke. "About twenty klicks. You can still feel the base, but it's far enough away that you don't overhear anybody's deep dark secrets. I figure it's a safe enough distance for you to make mistakes."

Kess fidgeted her dangling combat boots against the side of the log. "Do you always overhear secrets?"

Luke shook his head as he unwrapped a spork. "I turn it off most of the time. Why?"

Kess eyed him. "You heard my thoughts during debriefing."

" _You said it_ ; I wasn't listening for it. And even when I am listening for it, most people are just walking balls of emotion. But _you_ ," he flashed a smile, " _said_ it. I hate to think what else you've been doing accidentally."

Kess bashfully shrugged her eyebrows.

"During the day, practice turning your Empathy off and on, consciously, so you can strengthen your control over it." He set the small cooker in front of him and switched it on.

Kess nodded obedience and stared at the air a moment. "Makes you wonder how long I've been doing that." She grinned at the wildness of the idea. "I wonder if Grandpa taught me and I just never realized it."

"Oh yeah, I looked at your security check again," he said. "You're middle name isn't in there."

The gears cranked in her head. Grandpa was nobody who died in training. It didn't matter who he was. She fought a grin. "I guess you're going to have to figure out some way to get it out of me, aren't you?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"A fair trade." She crossed her arms at her chest. "Direct questions, direct answers. No beating around the bush and no lies and no more, 'it's a long story's."

Luke turned his head aside with a wince.

Kess shrugged out the obvious, "We're training, so I can ask you Jedi questions, right?"

Luke unzipped the drink box and sipped, avoiding her eyes, indecisive. He knew what was coming.

Kess adjusted her arms and lowered her tone, convinced that she had the right to know. "Darth Vader." The more he avoided it, the more she was convinced Kayla was right.

Luke watched the take-out dinner heat up where it balanced on the log between them.

He answered after a long minute, but his voice was barely above a whisper. "It doesn't matter who your grandfather was."

It stabbed her in the heart. And Luke sensed it clearly.

He remained politely quiet about it. He poked at the cooking meat with a spork and handed over a little dish of it. She took it without looking at him. She sighed a full breath to clean out the thorn of hurt from her heart and meditated a moment before she brought up her first bite.

Luke secretly watched her profile as she ate in silence. Sand-colored braids were curled into buns behind her ears. Her sleeves were rolled hastily to her elbows, making it obvious she wasn't wearing a khaki uniform under it like she was supposed to. (Few on humid Yavin 4 did that anyway.) Grease smudged a spot on her tanned forearm. Slot-pockets on her shoulder poked with a screwdriver and a marker. The army green jumpsuit smelled faintly of jet fuel. A gust of sweet jungle breeze blew a blond wisp of hair across her blushed cheek and she brought up a naked fingernail to pull it away. She licked a drop of red sauce from her lip and a brown eye aimed over at him as curiosity began to swell on the Force. "How long is this training going to take?"

Luke yanked his eyes back to his dish. "Not long, I hope," he murmured but then changed his tune. "Six months more maybe. I don't know. I've never done this before."

Kess saw him in time to notice Luke pull his eyes bashfully back down to his own dinner.

He cleared his throat. "The training will include several tests," he explained as he ate. "You've already passed the first one: how you respond in action. But the rest will be more specific. All those dark clouds represent," he searched for the term, " _open issues?"_ He shrugged, "You'll have to face every last one of them. You fear your father, for example, it's not going to go away until you face it down and neutralize it."

Kess stopped chewing. "And how am I supposed to do that?"

Luke cocked his head. "That is up to you, but you do have to do it." He tried to soften this news with friendly assurance. "I won't send you unprepared. Believe me, I want you to pass all this as much as you do."

Kess took a deep breath and nodded at the dinner in her hand.

Luke changed the subject. "And to prevent mishaps like this afternoon, we'll set up a training schedule. After knock off, go home, get changed, eat dinner, and then meet me outside my barracks by 1700. We'll leave for training from there."

"Every day?"

"Why wouldn't it be?"

"I was hoping to get back into fencing class. Plus the girlies and I go to the Mash Pit every Zhellday. And then you have the weekend which is another ball of wax entirely—

" _Every day_." He stressed the obvious math, "The more often you train the sooner you'll get through it."

Kess didn't care if half her schedule was canceled to be alone with Luke in the jungle, but she also didn't want him to get used to having her at his beck and call either. "Just because you don't have a social life doesn't mean you've got to make me suffer."

"You think you suffer now...?" He heckled at her, stuffed his last bit into his mouth, and put down his dish. "I'll make a deal with you. I know how important friends are, so have your Zhellday Night. But _every_ morning you will run and all other evenings are for training. Is that fair?" He climbed off the log.

Kess nodded. "And the weekend? Or did you forget again that most people take Benduday off?"

Luke dug into his bag and pulled something out. "I'm going to put you to work on the weekends." He grinned fiendishly as he backed up on his feet, "You are going to help me get through all those Jedi records." He turned to hang a mechanical ball in the air at the far end of the clearing.

Kess saw that he was setting up… _something_ , and hurried to finish her box meal.

He held out his hand to her. "Can I see your lightsaber?"

Kess fumbled with the clip as she stepped toward him and handed it over. His hair fell into his eyes as unscrewed the end cap. "Is the dummy load in it?"

"No." She hadn't had time, but offered, "Should it be?"

"Not anymore," his voice smiled at that. He popped out the power cell and handed that to her, then used his free hand to pluck the screwdriver from her shoulder pocket and opened the tiny side hatch.

She watched his face as he peered at the electronics inside, but he didn't appear to approve or disapprove of the contraption. He screwed the side closed again and gave her the screwdriver back. He returned the power cell and tightened the end cap back down. It was a smaller and thinner than his, but it had to be. He tested the weight of the hilt in his grip, then, shrugging an eyebrow, spun it atop his palm so he could hand it back to her, pommel first.

Kess began to clip the hilt back to her hip, but Luke almost laughed at her. "Don't put it away! What do you think we're doing out here?"

Kess shrugged her hands with the unlit hilt. "I don't know. What _are_ we doing out here?"

Luke was still grinning as he motioned her over. He stepped around behind her, nudging her shoulders to stand with her back to him.

Kess did as ordered, facing the trees again, eyeing him over her shoulder as he moved around.

And Kess did as ordered, consciously opening her senses for the practice of it. The 'walking ball of emotion' behind her felt like a bright, pastel rainbow of surface thoughts, the strongest of which was a ticklish yellow of happiness.

Luke was enjoying this.

So Kess did as ordered some more, clenching her thoughts shut before the man noticed the giggly blush-color of her Force Print shining back at him.

A big arm reached around her side to pull up her hand that held her hilt. The move was quick and sloppy and, still clueless as to his intent, she moved to his cues like a doll. She held the unlit lightsaber in the air in front of her as if she was handing it to someone.

With a quick-caught grin, he reached his other naked arm around to pull up her other wrist. He slapped her palms impatiently onto the brass with the silent command for both hands to _take_ the damn thing.




With a wash of excitement and nerves, Kess drew in a breath. She straightened her posture and stood evenly on her feet. His boot poked in from behind and kicked her feet apart some more.

"Don’t lock your knees."            He hovered behind her shoulder.

She bounced on her knees, adjusted her balance, and, in that drifted focus, her extended arms began to droop. He reached around again, took her elbow again, and pulled her arms back up again.

Knees bouncy, weight balanced, posture straight, arms extended, Kess held the unlit lightsaber out in front of her while her focus remained on the man _behind_ her.

But that shattered when he reached around her one side with both naked arms once more, adjusting how her hands held the weapon. His hands clasped lightly around hers, adjusting her fingers until she had it right; then, he thumbed her thumb to the switch.

**_SNAP-VROOM!_ **

The amber blade shot out of the hilt and sizzled the air in the clearing. Birds cried in panic as they fled from the canopy above. Staring at the hot laser extending from her hands, Kess realized with fresh fear how lethal these things were. She was lucky she didn't slice off something important while they were escaping from Frakkan.

She hooted out a quick, controlled breath and meditated a moment.

His hands and arms were gone, but he was still behind her shoulder as if using her as cover. "Ready?"

Her eyes bulged. _Fer what?!_

He stepped backwards from her side with eyes aimed at something beyond her blade. He lifted gentle fingers to the air and used a tiny pinch of Telekinesis on something out there. Kess totally forgot about the mechanical baseball until a red light blinked alive near the bushes.

"Lightsaber training, lesson one:" Luke backed quickly away as the remote booted up and began searching for a target. "Getting shot at…"

 

 


	8. LL2 8 NewsNets

** LL2       8         NewsNets **

A day's worth of dirty clothes lay wadded on the floor. Only the desk lamp lit the bedroom. Wearing nothing more than shorts and a tank top, Kess sat sideways in the chair with her elbow on the desk and her feet propped up on a dresser drawer hanging awkwardly open. Her reading ended only when her eyes began to drift shut.

A knock on the door shook her out of her accidental nap. She pulled her feet down from the dresser so she could to sit up straight. "Come in."

Kayla slid through the door with a big grin on her made up face. She was dressed to impress, cleavage and all. "Hey, girly. Figured you'd be up."

Kess blinked away the sleep. "You either had a date or a job interview." She glanced at the chrono. "Date."

Kayla plopped onto the ruffled bed, bursting with giddiness. "A date you would not believe."

Kess let a smile creep to her lips. "Did you get laid?"

"No," Kayla pouted.

Kess raised a brow and then turned to her desk, "Your right, I don't believe it."

"Guess who it was with," Kayla dared.

Kess shrugged as she tossed the datapad wearily onto the desk, "I don't know. Han Solo?"

Kayla slapped Kess' knee. "C'mon gimme a real guess."

She turned around in her chair to look at her friend, this time putting a moment's thought into it. "I don't know. Who?"

"Rett D'monck."

Kess' woke up. " _My_ Rett?"

Kayla nodded with tongue in cheek.

"My fencing partner Rett?" Kess clarified again.

Kayla bit her tongue in a proud smile.

Kess' disbelief sobered with a new respect to her friend. "Nice catch."

Kayla stretched her back with a swoon. "I could listen to that accent all night long."

Rett's accent reminded her of her grandfather's accent. Her tired brain fell into a fantasy about an odd combination of the two. _A blue-eyed Jedi with an Inner Rim accent?_

Her mouth twisted to the side. _You go, Grandma!_

"I take it you had a good time?"

Kayla sat up eagerly, "Want to hear about it?"

With a sigh, Kess shook her head, motioning to the datapad she was reading. "I do. I really do. But Luke wants me to get through this chapter before training tomorrow."

"What are you reading?" Kayla hid the disappointment from her expression, but Kess could sense it anyway.

Kess pulled it back in front of her to read the long title. "The Bundah Cult: Relaxation Techniques for Effective Meditation."

Kayla nearly laughed, "He's going to make you a Bundah believer now?"

Joanne called to them from the living room, "Kess come here, quick!"

"No," Kess answered as they both stood. "He just doesn't have that much Jedi stuff for me to read."

Kayla snorted on their way to the living room, "As if you had the spare time to read anything."

Kess didn't hear her. Her eyes were stuck to the light of the vid that Joanne was watching. The announcer on the NewsNet had Luke's picture behind his shoulder. "…able to confirm with Commander Skywalker yesterday…"

The screen flicked to a shot inside the Council Building where the reporters caught Luke on the way out of a Council Meeting. "Commander Skywalker, is it true that you have taken on your first Jedi Apprentice?"

Luke expressionlessly folded his hands behind his back. "Yes."

"How soon can we speak with Lieutenant Lendra?"

He caught his breath before answering, "I'll have to get back to you on that. Excuse me."

The vid cut back to the blue-skinned anchorwoman, now with Kess' picture behind her shoulder. "With the Empire's borders receding and the Jedi power in the New Alliance growing, we have a new hope for the end of this civil war. In other news today…"

Kayla turned to Kess and opened her mouth. Joanne turned on the couch to speak as well.

The comm beeped.

All three women abruptly shut their mouths and looked at the comm terminal instead.

It beeped again.

Joanne lowered her voice, "I'm only guessing, but I think it's for you."

Kess moved to the comm. Joanne muted the vid and Kayla sat down at the couch, hanging elbows over the back of it to eavesdrop politely.

Kess thumbed the button. "Hello?"

Leia's face flickered on the screen. "Hi, Kess. I'm glad you're up."

Kess shifted in the chair. "Councilor! I think you were the _last_ person I expected to hear from right now."

Leia gave her an understanding eye. "Did you see the NewsNets tonight?"

"Yeah, I did."

"Has anyone requested an interview yet?"

"No."

"If they do," Leia eyed her with almost a friendly grin, "turn them _down_. I'm going to see if I can get a little Politics training and New Alliance Security added to your Jedi curriculum before you do any interviews."

Kess nodded. "I understand. What should I tell them if I'm cornered?"

"Tell them you're too busy with training and duty." Leia smiled, "I know it wouldn't be lying."

She smiled wearily back, "No, it certainly wouldn't."

"On another topic, Minister of State Dell André has just announced his retirement, but that won't hit the NewsNets until tomorrow."

"The Minister of State is retiring? Why?"

"He's been fighting for our freedom for over thirty years. It's just the right time for him. I commed because I want you at his retirement ceremony. I'll send Threepio over with the details."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good night." Leia's face flickered away.

Kess leaned back in her chair and rubbed her eyes with her fingers.

Kayla got up from the couch. "And I thought my date was something to talk about."

Kess was lost in thought. How did the reporters get a hold of a picture of her without Kess realizing it? She climbed out of the chair and looked at the time, then patted Kayla once on the shoulder. "I'm glad you and Rett had fun. Tell him I said 'hi'. I'm going to bed."

* * *

 

**Linkup net channel \ _721AF83 ... Linked_            **

**_Enter access code:_ 546237rW   **

**_Matching ... Access code accepted._       **

**WELCOME TO THE IMPERIAL REGIONAL GOVERNMENTAL NETWORK          **

**Access Frakkan Mail System: Mugwot Pon \ MUGP77222@FRAKAN.NET**

**_Enter access code for Frakkan Mail System:_ 9954745456          **

**FRAKKAN MAIL SYSTEM: _MUGWOT PON_**        

**_You have ZERO mail messages_            **

**Compose new mail**

**TO: Governor Levilot \ NET: GLEV00001@FRAKAN.NET**

**FR: Mugwot Pon \ NET: MUGP77222@FRAKAN.NET**

**Usak returned. Training resumed. Position secure. Opportunities available. Team awaits orders.**

**End message.**

**Scramble 7.632 Code omektako**

**_Message scrambled._     
**

**Send.**

 

 


	9. LL2 9 Radio Free Yavin

** LL2       9         Radio Free Yavin **

It didn't take long to figure out that Rogue Group wasn't the 'best' squadron in the fleet as much as it was the 'biggest blasted collection of broken X-wings' Kess had ever laid eyes upon. She managed to keep her comments to herself when Commander Skywalker/Master Luke was around, but she did not hold back expressing her opinion to the next person in her chain of command.

"You are sending up an X-wing without shields _or_ backup life support?" Enraged arms flailed through the air at Neilson as the ready crew approached the Rogue Nine for refuel. Wisps of sweat-ridden hair came out of her braids in all directions and grease smudges streaked her forearms where the sleeves of her coveralls were hastily rolled up.

"The hell you think enviro-suits are for?" Neilson complained as he kept moving, getting as greasy and sweaty as his crew.

As soon as Rogue Nine was ready, he turned to Kess and lowered his voice. "Look, Kess, if we had time to fix them, we would." He motioned for the crew to ignore their argument and keep working. "When the Commander says 'everything that flies'; he _gets_ everything that flies."

Kess put one hand on her hip and the other on her forehead, reminding herself to remain calm. She lowered her voice, "If Rogue Nine gets a hit upper aft, it's out for the count, and we'll have to send a rescue team up to get the pilot."

Neilson turned his back to her and stormed to the next X-wing in the parking lot, but Kess clenched her fists after him and yelled above the noise. "Jer, seventy-eight percent of the time a one-man craftis _hit in the **aft**_."

Neilson grabbed a datapad from a grunt and spun to Kess. "Look, I sympathize with you. Hell, I agree with you! If we could ground these babies for a few weeks to catch up on repairs, we could raise the clearing standards a lot. _But we can't_! Commander Skywalker knows the condition of his ships when he calls a GQ drill and he _still_ hits that button!"

The next ready team began rolling up the equipment to refuel Rogue Four. Kess ducked under the nose to step out of the way. " _So ground them_! Losing a few weeks of maneuvers is not going to hurt pilot training or galactic peace."

Neilson slapped a port closed and tossed away the fat hose aside.

"Jer! If one of those pilots gets hurt because of a faulty craft, it's _your_ hide that goes to the Admiral's office to be fried, _not Luke's_!"

At the use of the first name, Neilson's eyes flicked to Kess as if she had slapped the man. The Repair Manager clenched his teeth and stomped to her, lowering his rough voice to almost a whisper, "Listen to me, Lieutenant. You may have been handpicked for this spot, but just because you're up close and personal with the GC does _not_ mean you get to break the rules. Rogue Group's Golden Rule is that the Commander gets _exactly_ what he asks for. You need to start following that rule because you're scaring the crap out of everyone. _Quit trying to piss him off_!"

She caught her smile and assured him, "The 'Commander' doesn't get pissed off like that."

He rose in index finger between their noses. "All it takes is once and that guy will be kneeling to the Empire and blowing up planets left and right. I'm not gonna argue with you right now. I have a squadron to get in the air and my Repair Supervisor is _not helping_!"

Kess humbled.

"We can fight over this later, okay? _Go ready the group_!" Neilson waved an arm at her and marched away to the next bird.

Kess tightened her lips and looked around at the jumpsuits racing to perform, almost panicked to do so, and yet this was just another drill. _You complain about people being afraid of you. Why do you push them so hard?_

Someone reported to Neilson, "Seidrik's in sickbay."

Neilson snatched a ready list from a hand and combed dirty fingers into his gray hair. His voice called out. "Kess! D'you have a flight ops cert?"

Kess tucked to a jog to catch up with him at the end of the hangar. "Yeah, but it's been awhile."

"Gear's in the cabinet." He motioned her to the wall and Kess jogged passed him. He yelled at her back. "Don’t forget to board the first pair before you log in!"

"I know, I know." Kess crossed the landing pad to the wall. She pulled open the hinged wall panel and started the sequence that would open the bay doors. When the red lights began to flash and the buzzer called in loud warning, army green ants swarmed over dirty, metallic birds. Kess lifted the mike from the wall and put her lips on it. Her voice carried the order to every speaker on Pad 14. "Rogue Group, man all readied craft for pilot boarding. All pilots to your stations. All pilots to your stations. "

Overhead, the ceiling ground stone wheels against stone railings. Sunlight and humidity poured into the big hangar bay. The Tigrian guy ran down the sidewall to kick back any unlatched hoses from the row of X-wings. Ashten was right behind him, verifying all fuel portholes were snugly closed. Two other grunts drove drag-runners toward the corner where Kess stood. The big nose cones of two X-wings loomed slowly toward her if glaring at Kess for not fixing them before sending them off to work.

Kess waited for the ceiling stone to crunch completely open and flipped off the switch before it ground against its own gears. She slammed the panel door shut and yanked open the cabinet to dig out flight ops gear. As if someone shook an orange hornet's nest, twelve pilots trotted out of the muster room in bright enviro suits and infested the green crowd. Grease grunts rolled ladders to Rogue Three and Five just in time for the pair of flight-suited pilots to need them.

Kess had to admit their speed was damned impressive. These frequent drills trained them so well they made it look like a finely choreographed group dance. If the ships were fixed too, then they really _would_ be the best. But Kess couldn't broach the subject with 'Master Luke' off duty, and she _wouldn't_ jump Neilson to talk with 'Commander Skywalker' about it on duty.

 _Maybe if I just 'thought' it really loud..._    

_…would... only... get me an extra lap around the grinder at oh-dark-hundred and nothing accomplished on Pad 14._

Shaking her head at the pickle, she hooked the bubble-ear headphones around her neck and the comm unit to her over-populated utility belt. Trying to keep up with the crew, she spun into a run to catch up with the pilot but her quick swivel swung her hilt into the comm unit and activated the yellow lightsaber blade for a split second, just enough to stab a big dimple into the duracrete hangar deck.

**_SNAP VROOZhhissss._ **

"Son-of-a-!" Kess growled out.

Bodies jumped. Fingers paused mid-task. Heads whipped her way.

Eyes widened at the Repair Supervisor long enough to see that she was okay, obvious by the way she was cussing with embarrassment and dancing to rip the lightsaber off of her dangerously overcrowded D-ring; then, the same twenty-some pairs of eyes simultaneously shifted for a peek at the pilot that the woman was _supposed_ to be boarding.

Halfway up his ladder, Commander Skywalker curled is face down into his chest and pinched back his red-faced snigger.

Neilson relaxed with a huff. Wedge angled crazy eyebrow at Kess. Ashten smiled awkwardly at the whole thing and got back to work.

Kess grabbed the hilt and thumbed it lock-off. She unlatched it from her right hip and hooked it on a weak belt loop on her left. She had tools sticking out of pockets, the comm unit hanging in front of her hip, a lightsaber banging against the other thigh, datacards in arm pockets, bulky headphones around her neck, wires plugging this into that. Juggling all this equipment was not a graceful endeavor with her so frustrated and hurried.

Luke peeked over as she approached. "You okay?"

Audibly growling at his laughing, and trying not to laugh about it herself, she stalked to his ladder and snatched the helmet from his hand so the pilot could shimmy into his ship. He pulled himself up the rest of the way and gave Artoo a mild hello. The droid beeped back from his socket, first saying hello to Luke, then reminding Kess to be more careful.

Kess followed Luke up, giving him enough room to climb into the cockpit before she rose to the top, and told Artoo to shut up.

Luke jumped his feet over the edge, his voice a friendly tease as he settled in, "Y'know, if you keep the switch on the lock- _off_ position, it won't do that." He reached out his gloved hand.

"Jedi topics on duty?" She hiked to the top of the ladder and gave him his helmet. "Means duty topics during training. Oh _please_ open that door for me." She wrapped one elbow around the ladder railing and got semi-comfortable to brief the pilot.

As he buckled the chinstrap, he eyed her through the visor with a clear statement that the metaphorical door was not going to budge, but she knew that already.

Kess brought up a datapad and turned to the page to Rogue Five's ship stat. "Okay. You've got a fresh weld patch on your starboard coolant line, but that shouldn't give you any problems. Your port thrusters had a funky twitch when we maxed them out, so don't fly clockwise in continuous circles and you'll be fine."

He teased back, "Got any more advice?"

She scolded him with it, "Don't get shot."

He thumbed the fighter to wake up. "Stop poking holes in my hangar deck."

She leaned over above his shoulder and plugged the flight suit into the life support behind his head. "Stop calling GQ drills when nothing's happening."

Finally, he chuckled at all of this, "You're such a whiner."

"And _you_ ," She reached inside the cockpit and hit the canopy control for him, whispering fast and quiet, "enjoy these power trips more than you should."

The X-wing began to spin into a high pitch. He turned his helmeted head toward the accusation. She pulled her hands away from craft before the canopy bit her, and Luke realized that all she was trying to do was not to lose a point.

He secretly grinned again. "I'm not the one fighting to get in the last word."

"I'll take that as a forfeit." She jumped to slide feet and hands down the rungs of the ladder and landed with a stomp onto the duracrete. She yelled out just before the canopy closed down over his head, "Your serve!" And yanked the ladder away from the X-wing.

Luke shook his head from behind the transparisteel in unfair defeat and turned his attentions to the cockpit controls.

Kess stepped to the side where she could plug into the flight ops jack. She set the bubble headphones over her ears, set the mike hovering in front of her lips, and nudged the switch on her hip to activate the comm unit. She cranked the volume so she could hear the static over the high whine of Rogue Three and Five powering up. She watched grease monkeys peel away from various craft as she adjusted squelch to hear the Control Tower.

 _Every_ pilot in _every_ craft on _every_ pad heard _every_ word. So did anyone else who had plugged in to monitor flight ops like the Control Tower, various members of Repair on the different pads, and probably an Admiral or two. All speech was monotone, whether it was official conversation or not, even greetings were flat with the boredom of routine.

Kess logged on with the same stale tone as everyone else. "Control, Rogue Flight; Login and request group launch. Over."

And she recognized Joanne's voice immediately, "Rogue Flight, Control; Hold please. Over."

It would figure that Joanne would be on the air when Kess had to do flight ops. Kess' smile was clear in her voice, breaking the monotony of flight ops already. "Control, Rogue Flight; Holding, aye."

Apparently, Joanne had to finish her business with Gold Group before she could clear Rogue Group. Her voice was grinning too. "Gold Flight, Control. Two and Seven clear for launch. Over."

Kess already knew who was running flight ops in Gold Group and squeezed her eyes tight when she heard Kayla's happy voice a moment later, "Control, Gold Flight; Gold Two and Seven are go."

The 'Girly Girls' finally rendezvoused on Radio Free Yavin.

They, and dozens of others with the cert, used to compete over drinks about what joke was worth risking their certifications. It was unanimously agreed that whichever fool dared to break ranks on Radio Free Yavin with a joke would earn a free drink from every other flight ops that heard the broadcast.

The result was a passionate tug of war between the eagerness to get your joke in before anyone else so you could win the beer versus the hesitation and fear of getting written up or losing your certification. Many insisted that such a stunt could escape an official write up if the joke funny enough.

Kess could hear the grin of ideas in Kayla's tight voice when she spoke a moment later, "Control, Gold Flight; Gold Two and Seven have cleared the ramp. That completes the launch for Gold Group. Have a nice flight, sirs."

Kess looked up to see a glimpse of a Y-wing flying by, its high whine almost incoherent with a dozen high whines bouncing against the walls in here.

Commander Tolgray's voice was equally as recognizable as Kayla and Joanne, but he wasn't having any fun. "Control, Gold Leader; Gold Group has cleared ozone. Over."

Joanne's voice dropped closer to proper monotone, but not entirely. "Gold Leader, Control; Ozone cleared, aye. Have a nice flight, sirs. Over."

Kayla's voice was oddly serious again. "Control, Gold Flight; Signing off. Over." A significant **click** interrupted the static on the channel when Kayla unplugged, but the click was almost _too_ significant.

And Kess could feel it. She shook her head, whispering a grin in secret. "Kayla, don't. Kayla, don't do it."

Joanne kept up a good act of pretending she didn't know what was coming. "Rogue Group, Control; Proceed with Group launch. Over."

Then it happened. Someone used a squelch focus control and a phony inner rim accent as voice modifiers. There was no way to be certain who it was, but everyone jumped to his or her own conclusions.

**_"How many Jedi does it take to screw in a light bulb?"_ **

There was a pregnant pause on the air. Some wondered if they heard it right, some tried to absorb audible clues as to the guilty party, some reached for mikes so they could bark out orders to cut it out. But _most_ of them rolled their eyes about wasting the moment on a groaner of a joke.

The kiddy-appropriate answer being, of course, 'All of them; Jedi hate the dark side.'

But 'kiddy-appropriate' answer was not what the prankster had in mind. In that pause, the voice delivered his or her punch line.

**_"None. Gotta get the Sith. Our Jedi don't screw."_ **

Kess almost coughed. So did everyone else, apparently, because another long pause of blank air followed.

Kess scrambled to speak quickly in hopes to camouflage the moment with the continuing babble of regular ops. "Control, Rogue Flight; Rogue Leader and Three are on ramp for launch. Over."

A deep, chilled voice filled the airway immediately after she un-clicked and _everyone_ could hear that Luke Skywalker did not find the joke funny at all, especially when he scolded his own apprentice on Radio Free Yavin.

"All Hands, Rogue Leader;Cease and desist all non-official communications. Control, Rogue Leader; Carry out launch procedures. Rogue Flight, Rogue Leader, as soon as launch completes, report to Tower Control until retrieved by your GC. Over."

Kess couldn't see him in the cockpit because of the angle, but his disappointment, embarrassment and anger glared out of that craft like a General Quarters alarm.

When Control came back on the air a second later, it was no longer Joanne's voice. "Rogue Flight, Control; Launch Rogue Five and Three. Over."

Kess began to speak the next step in the launch, but Neilson stomped to Kess and held out a hand. Kess shut her mouth and handed him the flight ops gear without saying another word.

 


	10. LL2 10 Control Trouble

** LL2       10        Control Trouble **

High above the tallest structure poking up from the jungle, the Control Tower could see everything on Yavin Base. One floor beneath the Flight Operations Control Tower, Captain Banda's office had a wall of windows and a beautiful view of six massive, stone, pad complexes.

But Captain Banda wasn't looking at it. She was yelling at the top of her lungs as she paced across the floor in front of her desk. Commander Tolgray wasn't looking at it either. He was standing with locked knees and arms folded at his chest.

The three people who were looking at the view were standing at crisp attention side by side and staring with stone-cold military detachment. Ensign Joanne Percy, Lieutenant Junior Grade Kayla Korbosi, and Lieutenant Kess Lendra were too busy getting their butts chewed out to notice any view.

"Percy, that's two you have now for misconduct on the air. One more and you will be turning in your khaki's for dungarees. I _promise_ you that."

Behind them, the door slid quietly open and closed again. Captain Banda paused in her ranting, but she was hardly cooled in her silence. Commander Skywalker strolled slowly around the three standing in rank and met Banda's eye as he settled to allow the woman to finish.

Luke wasn't sure if it his arrival or the threat to lose her commission that made panic pour out of Joanne's heart. He saw Kayla's eyes flash to him in terror and flick back forward. Kess was deadpan.

"And _you_ Lieutenant JG," Captain Banda stepped in front of Kayla, "You're off my channel until I say otherwise. I don't care if you're the only grunt left on the ground to log in. You hear me?"

"I yanked her cert." Commander Tolgray muttered. Kayla would now have to train and test for Flight Ops certification from scratch, and since a repair grunt can't make rank without it… Kayla's shoulders melted a little until she realized her composure. She sucked in a breath and tightened her gut to sharpen her posture again.

The room went quiet for a moment as Captain Banda and Commander Tolgray ran out of things to threaten them with. The Captain turned to Luke. "They're all yours, Commander."

Luke inhaled and held it for a long moment. He was about to just give them a quiet little speech and be done with it, but there was a problem: no one could confirm exactly who it was that committed the crime. These three voices, who grinned about finding themselves on the air at the same time, made these three the most likely suspects, but Luke sensed out to each of the women in the room.

Kess kept her emotions slammed shut from him like a vault door. Her roommate, Joanne, was about to break down into tears in fear to lose her commission. Her best friend, Kayla, was pissed because she lost her cert. But none of them glared with the specific guilt of the crime or the acute fear of being caught.

Commander Skywalker moved around them to stand with Captain Banda and Commander Tolgray by the desk, "There's no reason to write up all three of you when it's obvious only one person did it."

Captain Banda glanced over at his change in vector. Usually, for this kind of prank, she just hung out to dry everyone that that _sounded_ guilty rather than waste time trying to figure out who it was. Any error in said punishment only meant more training for someone who didn't need it. Where was the problem in that? But, since it was _him_ the broadcasted comment was meant to insult, she let the Jedi have the reins of this one.

Commander Skywalker looked at the floor. "Let's keep this simple. Will the guilty party please step forward."

Joanne, Kess, and Kayla stood stiff and stared at nothing.

Skywalker shrugged. "Okay, fine. Will the _non_ -guilty parties please step _backward_ s."

Joanne, Kess, and Kayla stood stiff and stared at nothing.

Commander Tolgray eyed them from the side. Commander Skywalker gave that an extra couple of beats to see if any would budge. Captain Banda closed her eyes to realize what was happening.

Joanne, Kess, and Kayla stood stiff and stared at nothing.

The three women didn't care who did it and they didn't care who was going to fry over it. They stood side-by-side, stiff and staring, ready to cover for each other no matter what punishment landed on their heads today. Captain Banda turned to stroll to her office window with a cuss as quiet (and as complimentary) as it was an insult, _Rebel Scum_.

Luke realized it may not have been any of them, but since he had a captive audience, complete with key command as backup, he thought best to address the broadcasted comment rather than the breaking of ranks on the ops channel.

He spoke carefully, quietly, and very slowly. "The New Alliance needs Jedi Knights to fight the Empire, but it also needs Jedi Knights to strengthen the government from within. If there is slander running around the grapevine, we aren't going to be able to strengthen anything but the basis for scandals." He strolled in front and looked directly at Kayla when he said that.

Kayla swallowed hard.

He continued, strolling again. "I am trying to rebuild the entire Guild myself. I can't quit my day job to do it, and neither can my apprentice. If you support this effort, then you will restrain talk that would look negatively on this training. There is too much opportunity for jokes to be misunderstood. If the galactic public settles on a misconception, all our work is for naught."

He paused a long second, now standing and staring at Joanne. Joanne blinked to avoid his eyes and a tear dribbled down her brown skin.

Luke continued his stroll all the way to the side of them all. "And I'm not just talking about the Ops Channel. I'm talking about the locker room, the commlink, the Mash Pit, barracks, all of it." His voice was still painfully quiet. "Am I understood?"

"Yes, sir," all three of them whispered quickly.

At the flick of Luke's eyes that he was done, Captain Banda hissed at Joanne, "Report to your station."

Joanne nearly fell over herself to march out of the room. Commander Tolgray gave Kayla a similar order and gave a nod of respect to Luke as he followed the Lieutenant JG out to the hall. Captain Banda stepped to the door and muttered, "Take as much time as you need," as she shut her office door, enclosing the Master and Apprentice in the room alone.

Long after the room was empty, save for the man standing just outside her field of vision, Kess remained stiff and stared at nothing.

With her emotions slammed shut so tightly to prevent him from sensing her, she couldn't sense him either. At the continuing stretch of silence, her eyes flicked over to peek for an expression instead. Luke settled his butt against the edge of a cabinet and crossed his ankles in front of him. Arms crossed hard in front his khakis. He stared out the window with disappointment as if still trying to figure out what to do about this.

His voice was a cold whisper. "Kess, this _can't_ be a topic out there."

Kess clenched her teeth and hissed. " _I didn't do it—_

"I know you didn't do it." He interrupted. "I was sitting three metres from you when it happened. You were just as embarrassed about it as I was."

Kess zipped her lips shut. She stood stiff and stared at nothing.

He tightened his throat to force the words from his mouth. "The mere _idea_ of you and I having sex _can't_ be a topic out there in the ranks." He insisted in a stiff whisper. "And the only person with any control over that is _you_."

She broke ranks to glare at him. "How do _I_ have control over what they're saying about us?"

He lifted a brow, his voice still barely above a whisper. "Because you know who did it."

Kess returned her stare to nothing in the window.

"Don't you?"

Kess stood stiff and stared at nothing. She slammed shut her soul as tightly as she could but her novice Force block didn't hide how sufficiently embarrassed and guilty and _enraged_ she was about this whole thing. It still didn't tell Luke who it was, but Luke didn't care who it was.

 _"Deal with it_." He ordered, hard and quiet, anger aimed at her as if the barracks rumors were all her fault.

As if her anticipation imploded, Kess' eyes flicked again to see his expression. One angry look from him, her Force block fell away. Her eyes flicked back to the window trying to take this like a soldier, but her heart cried out on the Force, completely crushed by his disappointment.

Kess could barely whisper. "Yes, master."

Luke realized that he didn't have to say or do anything else to discipline her further and muttered, "dismissed," on his way out to the door.

 

 


	11. LL2 11 The Skywalker Matriarch

** LL2       11        The Skywalker Matriarch **

Three Togrutas were sucking on death sticks outside the barracks when Kess and Kayla emerged from the door. Kess parted the lounging crowd and marched impatiently to the sidewalk in her khakis where they could finish this debate in relative privacy.

"Tell you what," Kess turned to her friend and cocked her weight on one leg. "Just set me up on a date with somebody else."

Kayla blinked back.

Kess spread her hands. "Kayla, we can double date all you want," she talked while backing up to the edge of the sidewalk just as a speeder was driving up.

Kayla almost grabbed her uniform before the woman stepped blindly into traffic, but the Jedi Apprentice's back legs stopped just shy of the sports speeder, and the glossy red hood stopped just shy of the Jedi Apprentice. Kess simply thumbed over her shoulder at it, "it just can't be with _him_!"

Kayla's eyes flicked to the humorless driver as Luke waited for Kess to climb in. The Jedi was wearing the same outfit he wore on the NewsNet report that day… that day when they were all toasting the heroes, that day when everyone was glued to the vid to learn the details of the war they'd just won, that day when _that_ _man_ confirmed to the galaxy that Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader were dead.

…that day when Kayla laughed, _"Yeah, I'll bet he had to turn to the dark side to kill them both and he doesn’t want to admit that's how he did it!"_

Kayla stared back at _that_ _man_ through the windshield, but she wasn't laughing anymore.

As Kess climbed into to the passenger's side and buckled in, Kayla noticed Kess was in formal uniform too. That was just taking it too far. Kayla bleated at her. "So you're going to train in _uniform_ now?"

Kess scoffed at her through the open cockpit. "The Minister of State Retirement Ceremony!" Kess would have added more and Kayla would have replied, but Luke hit the accelerator in order to finish their public conversation right there.

Kess settled in beside him, meditated a moment, and waited in silence for the drive. It took more than a block before Luke could generate any words and, even as he began to speak, he bit his response out of the air anyway.

"I _did_ deal with it," she answered as if Luke had snapped at her. "As much as I could. Kayla is not the one that did it."

Luke wondered how that classified as 'dealing with it'. He kept his eyes on the road.

"But I have to admit, I would have handled that _very_ differently if I didn't have the Force." She spoke low and serious, but calm, almost worried, "She came across as angry at my accusation, naturally, but she's not angry." Kess thought a moment as if still absorbing this. "She's guilty and jealous."

Luke grinned wryly. "Wouldn't guilt imply…?"

Kess corrected with a smile in her voice as if this should have been obvious. "She doesn't feel guilty over the ops channel thing. She feels guilty because she's dating Rett."

Luke blinked. Lost.

Kess watched the scenery out the other window as she talked. "My old fencing partner? Rett D'monck? You met him in the class. Cinnamon blond, sapphire eyes, Lando Calrissian-smile?"

Without looking at each other, they shared a grin at the description.

Kess continued, "Kayla backed off because she was trying to get me to hook up with him. So when I came back from Frakkan 'in training' she assumed I was ( _ahem_ ) 'no longer available'. Guess I can't blame her for scooping him up."

Luke kept his eyes on the road and his tone even. "So how does this qualify as 'dealing with it'?"

Kess shrugged girlishly. "I told her to just hook me up with somebody else instead."

A piece of Luke shrugged a brow to admit that wasn't a bad idea. Another piece of him rolled his eyes over this ludicrous notion that women can't be happy unless the were dating someone. But the piece secreted so far into a corner that not even his Apprentice could detect was the piece _panicked_.

But Luke had a great deal of self-discipline to not let that kind of thing show. He parked with the masses instead of bothering with the valet. He didn't open her door and she didn't wait for him to. They walked into the building side-by-side but not together, stiff in their black and tan uniforms. They muttered about nothing as they climbed steps into the lobby and cut through dignitaries slithering through the room like confetti-colored tadpoles in a primordial political soup.

The gold-foil chamber doors were still closed. Luke checked his chrono. They were twenty minutes early.

Kess looked around the room in one direction, passively observing the crowd, spiking mild interest only to see famous politicians in person for the first time. Luke looked around the room in the other direction, searching, but not finding, Leia or Han.

He didn't need to close his eyes to sense out and find his sister. "This way." He marched ahead, cutting the crowd with his shoulder, and Kess followed, until they were in the relatively empty hallways of the hotel rooms.

Kess' voice peeped with the quiet humor of this craziness. "Where are we going?"

Luke almost laughed at her misunderstanding, but he poked around the corner and found a room door hanging open in invitation as though were expected. Kess peeked around his arm to peer into the hotel room, seeing bodies and hearing laughter.

"Oh."

Han was leaning his butt against a bureau, his eyes bright and smile spread across his face at Lando lounging halfway on the bed (it was his room), laughing his way through some crazy tale. Leia was dressed in an evening gown of mother-of-pearl silk and a jeweled up-do that must have taken hours. She kicked back in the comm desk chair with sequenced slippers crossed on the nearby bed. The woman was giggling with a low, knowing voice and hugging a goblet of pink wine to her own eye as she laughed.

The tale was apparently so interesting that Threepio was the first to notice their arrival. "Good evening, Commander. Lieutenant."

"Hello, Threepio."

Luke only stepped in enough to get out of Kess' way and found a nice comfy space on the wall where he could blend in with it. He thought Kess would complete the relative circle and stand in that big open space between him and Han, but she fell into his flank right next to him as if that's where she belonged. Since they were both in uniform, Luke concluded it was a military habit.

Lando had barely finished his tale, or perhaps interrupted it, when all three of their still-laughing faces turned to the new arrivals.

"So!" Han beamed over at them, "How many Jedi _does_ it take to screw in a light bulb?!"

Luke closed his eyes, shaking his head as they laughed at him. He knew by the sangria-colored spike of embarrassment in her Force Print that she detected the same sangria-colored spike in his, even if it wasn't painfully apparent on his face.

Lando curled over his own lap with a silent cackle. Leia turned her face away, trying not to laugh. Han gestured at the pair with one arm, "And in uniform, too, like I said." He set his goblet down on the dresser behind him and motioned to Lando. "Pay up, buddy."

From his half-lounge on the bed, Lando spread his hands at Kess. "What are you doing coming to this thing in khakis!?" Grunting, Lando pulled out his credit chip.

Leia watched Luke and Kess from across the room. Her eyes smiled, but she spoke calm agreement. "You’re here as a Jedi, not a Lieutenant."

Kess kept her hands clasped behind her as if she were reporting in. She shrugged, "I don't have a Jedi uniform," then added, "or a dress." She watched Lando toss the credit chip across the room and Han caught it with both hands. Beyond that, Kess' eyes snagged again on Lei- _Councilor Organa Solo_ staring ather with cool humor, warm eyes, and chilling power.

Kess lowered her chin and opened her senses, but she didn't need the Force to match words to the matriarch's stare.

_Yes. I **do** see what's happening between you and my brother.       _

_Yes. I **am** happy he's found some female company and, sure, you'll do.    _

  1. _Yes. I **will** slice you into little bitty pieces with your own kriffing lightsaber if you break his heart.         _



Kess maintained the gaze with complete understanding, full honesty, and absolute respect towards Leia's wordless message.

" _Leia_." Luke's slow voice pierced the room, strong and warning.

Han and Lando quit making noise, eyeing Luke and then Leia to see her glaring deviousness and him glaring a warning. Kess knew Luke sensed the communication between them but she wasn't sure if he understood it. Leia's powerfully even eyes remained on Kess a moment longer.

" ** _Leia_** ," Luke shook his head slowly, his tone loud and clear. "Don't."

Han sucked the smile off his lips. Lando respectfully dropped his sights to nothing on the bed, unworried. Kess closed her eyes and wondered if she should respectfully make her leave.

Leia turned her eyes to where she set her goblet on the comm desk, freeing her hand to gesture toward the exit. "Threepio, please close the door and wait for us outside."

"Yes, Councilor." The gold droid bowed and waddled out. His servos whirring back and forth echoed in the sudden silence. They all waited. Anger, Embarrassment, Humor, Hope, Discomfort, Daring, and Laughter ricocheted off the walls on the Force. And, during that silence, Leia gracefully pulled to her feet to step across the hotel room floor.

The moment the door whisked shut, she was in front of her brother like she was going to teach him a thing or two. Her brother was already barking back with a smile threatening to emerge on his pink face. " _She's. My. Apprentice!"_

Han couldn't contain it. His laughter escaped in a sniggering snort. Lando tossed his head back and tried to hide his face with his palms. Leia turned her loving eyes up at Luke and spoke in a smooth, low, _don't-screw-with-me_ kind of voice. "Luke. We all lived in a hotel suite together for two full months. I don't need training in the Force to see what's happening."

Kess tried to keep the fuzz in her heart from bleeding out on the Force, but it didn't work, so she scrunched her head down between her shoulders and grimaced until her eyes shut.

Luke dropped his hands and squealed it. " _Nothing_ is happening! That's my point! And now you're just making it worse bringing it out in the open like this!"

Han laughed loud. "So you like her, kid! _So what?_ Who cares?"

Luke's voice whined out. "Now I have to teach _you_ _guys_ politics? If I don't get Senate support on this Guild—" he stopped himself with a cough of incredulity.

Leia nearly laughed at him again. She stepped up and patted his forearms with loving assurance. "Luke, you're missing the point."

Kess peeked with a single eye but was not bold enough to look around. She saw a piece of Leia's pearl gown and a piece of Luke's black uniform and, in the small slice between them, Lando's eyes watched _her_. His was a tight grin of real understanding and pure enjoyment to witness Luke squirm. It meant all their guesses and suspicions were dead on.

With a huff, Luke dared to answer. "Do I want to _know_ the point?"

"The point is," Leia said as if teaching a class. "How many Jedi does it _really_ take to screw in a light bulb?"

Kess could feel his emotion sucking quickly into a tiny spot until it all disappeared like a _dark_ black hole.

" _All of us_ ," she answered pointedly. "And right now, _I'm_ the one willing to shine the light into the corner before dark side has a chance to fester."

Luke's defenses calmed with a tight huff through his nose. He sensed Kess humble too with a puff of new respect for the Councilor.

"You like her. She likes you. You've become friends. _So what?_ The cameras are on you and it makes it feel awkward. The Senate is on you and it makes it feel complicated. But relax, Luke. We like her too."

Kess glowed and tried not to let it show.

The Councilor stepped away, her eyeball stretched just enough towards Kess to make her position crystal clear. _Little bitty pieces…_

Lando broke the tension with a blurting smile. "I got an idea!"

They all turned to watch the man scoot off the bed and stand up, hands spread and head high with his great plan. "It's about appearances. About politics."

Luke already didn't like the sound of this. "No, Lando, it's not just—

"Gotta keep it in perspective. I get that." Lando interrupted lightly. He explained as he stepped slowly forward with placating gestures and salesman's voice. "What you need is a simple, _easy_ , solution to this _whole_ misunderstanding."

As Lando advanced, Luke took an instinctive step to get between him and her. Han sniggered and Leia turned away with fresh laughter. Lando just reached right around the Jedi and offered an elbow to the Lieutenant. "Shall we?"

Luke's eyes must have widened the way they were laughing at him and he forced himself to calm down. He pressed his mouth to admit there was nothing he could do; nothing he _should_ do. As Kess took Lando's elbow with screaming uncertainty, Luke just exhaled every bit of breath from his lungs and let them go.

A moment later, Han escorted Leia out too, passing Luke to leave the room, and, as soon as their backs were turned, snuck a quiet croon. "You snooze, you lose."

Luke was quiet and humbled for the entire ceremony. Kess was nervous and attentive. The most communication they had all night were forced grins and _only_ when they found each other's eyes by accident. The joke was gone in the minds of everyone else, even Leia, Han, and Lando, but Luke still occasionally struggled with the embarrassment of it, and Kess occasionally flushed at what was implicated in it.

They were politely silent all the way home too and, during the drive, Luke realized Kess had spent all camera angles on or near Lando's elbow, and yet reverted right back to Luke's flank when no media was looking. Luke's heart gently swelled. He thought about it: about Kess, and Kayla, about Lando and, (what was the guy's name?) Rett. He wondered why Kess had no interest in Rett when Kayla was so convinced she should. If Kayla was _that_ attracted to the man…

As Luke slid the speeder to the curb outside her building, he cocked his chin. "You said 'guilty and jealous'. What was Kayla _jealous_ about?"

"She knows she's not my best friend anymore," Kess said simply. She climbed out of the speeder and poked her eye back down under the hood to see him. "I found a new one."

Luke's eyes shifted to see the simple shrug of her brow. A smile of deep honor spread across his face.

Meeting her eye, Luke nodded.

Meeting his eye, Kess grinned.

"Good night."

"'Night." Luke drove away.

 


	12. LL2 12 Kadaan's Threat

** LL2       12        Kadaan's Threat **

In the midst of empty space, an Imperial battle group floated in a busy cluster. Within a nest of other Star Destroyers, gunboats, and roving TIE fighters, Star Destroyer _Vengeance_ floated arrogantly above them all. From his private chambers, Supreme Prophet Kadaan looked out over his growing forces.

The guards, led by a stiff-faced Admiral Cheenan, ushered a civilian body into the room. Governor Levilot's shoulders were rigid and square. His lips drew a thin line, a dribble of blood crusted on the corner of his mouth. Bitter eyes drilled into the robed figure that approached him.

Supreme Prophet Kadaan swooped his arms around as he turned to drag the long black robe behind him. His facial features were too large for his dwarfish height. Intense eyes shined royal blue. Thinning, fraying, long hair was as yellow as a sunflower. He had a giant, round-tipped nose and short teeth in his smile. He strolled up to the Governor, evilly pleased at the visitor. "My dear Governor Levilot," he said in a low voice. "I understand you have located my Usak for me."

The Governor swallowed dryly, "We don't know—

Cheenan sailed his hand across the Governor's face. Levilot's head whipped aside.

"You were not commanded to speak," Cheenan hissed.

Levilot glared back at him. Cheenan waited anxiously for another reason to hit the man.

"Now, now, my boy." Kadaan's pleasantries seethed with malevolence as he stepped away from them. "Let us show hospitality to the Governor." Kadaan sat down and draped his long sleeves across the arms of the command chair. "He has been a valuable operative."

Levilot glared at Kadaan again, hating the Prophet with everything he was worth. Sultani was such a beautiful city.

"What Admiral Cheenan did was only fair," Kadaan assured. "Sultani was your punishment for your acts of high treason. You located the Usak for me, but you didn't turn her over to me. Why?"

Governor Levilot shifted his eyes to Cheenan and back to Kadaan. "It was not confirmed that she was the Usak you were looking for. I did not want to hinder Your Excellency with a questionable target."

"I see," Kadaan hissed disbelieving. "And how did you find my Usak in the first place?"

Levilot gritted his teeth. "Your description and the guidance from our book of scriptures gave us enough information to focus an investigation."

Kadaan raised a yellow eyebrow. He quickly got out of his chair with an open-mouthed smile. "And do you still have your _investigators_ 'investigating'?"

Levilot's mind shot to the spies the Frakkans still had on Yavin Base. Suddenly, he feared for their safety.

Before he could speak, Kadaan nodded. "I see that you do." His blue eyes narrowed in warning, "If you give us access to your 'investigators' I will reward you by not destroying the rest of your precious planet."

Levilot hissed, "You do not have a Death Star to threaten me with."

"True, very true," Kadaan said to ponder that, then looked him with a grin, "What I _do_ have is a fleet of Star Destroyers just _itching_ for some target practice. Which city shall we destroy next?"

Levilot thought long and hard as he looked into the eyes of the Supreme Prophet. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the forbidding fleet outside the window. He would do anything to protect the lives of his people, but a few people would protect the lives of millions.

It took him a minute to capitulate, but the Governor answered. "The code name is Mugwot Pon. They send mail messages to my private inbox using code omektako."

Kadaan smiled short teeth, and somehow Levilot knew that his spies weren't the only sacrifices he would make today. Kadaan turned away, giving Cheenan and approving nod.

With a greedy smile, Cheenan ignited a red lightsaber and, in one, swift move, sliced Governor Levilot in half.

* * *

If Luke had the training on a plan, Kess couldn't figure it out. They practiced intense exercise on an irregular basis (besides the morning workout, of course.) She tossed the idea of attracting him with the clothes she wore. She had to throw on anything durable in case they would be playing guerrilla warfare for she would never know it ahead of time. They would practice with remotes, or hike for kilometres for no reason, or jump with Force-powered leaps through the bushes.

Other times, he wouldn't have her lift a finger. They would sit on the grass patch in the back of the clearing and just talk for hours. He'd lay flat on his back and stare up into the ever-stretching tree branches explaining distant memories of his own training with Yoda and Obi-Wan. Kess would study his features and expressions as he talked, completely enthralled, all the while trying to put his cloudy history together out of the jumbled pieces. But she still couldn't get him to talk about Darth Vader or Emperor Palpatine, and could get very little out of him about moisture farming life on Tatooine.

He would show her little tidbit tricks he'd learned about how to use the Force. She learned how to communicate ideas to animals during a curious visit from a floppy-eared wild cat. He taught her how to sense out an individual and hide her consciousness in the back of someone else's mind. She spied on Kayla for a few, brief seconds, and realized, accurately, this was how he watched her for a year before they met.

A few minutes later, she tried to do it on him, but he caught her and wouldn't let her in, scolding her lightly with a subdued twinkle in his eye.

Even when they weren't training together, he still had her working on her Jedi skills. He instructed her to meditate on a regular basis, and she often meditated herself to sleep if the reading didn't bore her enough already. He gave her book after book to study. The subjects spanned from dry politics to confusing religions, cultural sociology to xenopsychology, and anything else he had that had even a mention of the Force or the Jedi. She would read late into the night in her room, at dinner, during her walk to work, but never could make the time to read as fast as she was getting the assignments. It worried her at first, but she eventually noticed that he never tested her on the homework. He would only ask what she thought about the literature she had already read. He never pressured her to read faster, memorize it better, or draw up some stupid book report.

She wouldn't have had the time if he did. Her daily schedule left no room to maneuver. She'd wake before the alarm at oh-dark-hundred to run, then she'd rush home to shower and change, only to report for duty to the same guy. The hectic X-wing repairs needed constant attention, requiring her to skip more lunches than she actually took. Luke never told her she was working too hard, and he never told her she wasn't working enough. And he would stroll in from lunch, drop a box of take-out food on her desk, and mutter a quiet Jedi Master's order to, "Never skip a meal."

As autumn approached, the heavy rains came and Luke preferred to stay inside and discuss the meanings of various hazy clues from the records. It was during these friendly arguments that she grew more comfortable with questioning his authority on the subject. There were far too many ideas in the books that she just couldn't take at face value. She would throw real life analogies at him as solid examples to base her principles upon, often contradicting the actual Jedi code in the process. He would think about it for a minute and return with even more fat to chew on. They debated nearly every subject into the ground. Most of the time, they wouldn't get anywhere, but occasionally the conversation drifted into excited agreement and elation that they'd figured out one more mystery about the Force.

Somewhere along the line, Kess realized that Luke was becoming more of a friend than he ever was a Master. She often sat in the dark in her living room long after the girlies had gone to bed and remember the snapshots of giddy blue eyes or grumbling complaints. Her logical side would deny there was anything more than a close friendship between from the only two Jedi in the galaxy, but her passionate side insisted there was a lot of emotion happening in his little cloud; not the fine Jedi peace he so often preached. And it was her passionate side that was relentless about getting him to show some of that emotion.

 

 

 


	13. LL2 13 Jedi Records

** LL2 13 Jedi Records **

Kess treated Neilson to lunch in South Base in order to make the time to talk about the clearing standards. They came up with a conservative three-month plan, grounding the entire compliment for overhauls and repairs, not clearing _any_ of them to fly until they were _all_ clear to fly. After that, they would only have to fix things as they broke rather than frantically patch up old problems between drills.

For as much of a big, strong, war veteran as Neilson was, he oddly lacked the balls to stand up against Commander Skywalker. Kess offered to be the one to take the heat and assured Neilson that the Jedi wouldn't lose his lid when he saw the ship stat report.

After a lot of convincing, Neilson finally agreed to the plan. The lure that Rogue Repair would get the opportunity to catch up was just too strong to pass up.

Since Luke insisted keeping Jedi Training and Group Operations separate, even in casual conversation, she didn't mind not saying anything about the grounding plan until Neilson was ready and the ship stat report was actually due. Once she successfully got Neilson's agreement, however, it took work to keep her smugness stuffed away so Luke wouldn't detect it during training.

No longer accustomed to clothes that weren't either a uniform or exercise gear, Kess dusted lint from her ivory tunic as she stepped from the elevator. The early dawn of Benduday felt like fresh peace in these barracks. This building was the same layout as everyone else's, but this was higher-ranking officer country. Her boots clicked too loudly on the flat tile. She stopped at the last door on the left, raised her chin, and reached for the door buzz—

The door swished aside.

Her surprise relaxed to sarcasm. She wondered how far away she was when he first sensed her approach. Kess dropped her hand and stepped into the immaculate apartment. Luke sat in his living room and tossed a datapad onto the drink table. "Good morning." He wore a neatly tucked, sky-blue shirt. Faded denim fit well over his strong legs. Her eyes landed on his naked feet propped on top of the drink table just as he was pulling them to the floor.

"Good morning," she told him, almost wanting to stand at parade rest. She forced herself not to.

The apartment was the same layout as any other two-bedroom barracks, yet Kess knew instantly that Luke's only roommate was Artoo. The place was spotless and void of the usual customizing. The furniture was standard black couches and off-white carpet, black lacquer table and desk at the far end just like the ones in her barracks, but his wasn't cluttered with junk. She wondered where all his medals were.

Luke stood and passed her to the kitchenette. "Want a drink?" He pulled out a clean glass from the cupboard.

"Not if you're going to try to give me hydrate." Kess pulled out a six-pack of blue plastic bottles she had carried behind her back. "Sweetwater tastes better."

Luke ushered her to help herself to the cold storage to put it away. When she stood again, she took a swig out of one of the bottles and faced him down. "You didn't run this morning. What happened?"

Luke looked at the glass and put it away again. "You've been complaining so much about getting up early I decided to sleep in and see what I was missing."

Kess smiled at him. "How was it?"

He shook his head. "It wasn't worth it."

"You weren't doing it right."

Luke lifted an eyebrow, "Did you run without me?"

She sang softly. "I'd rather run it once today than twice tomorrow."

Luke strolled by her to a bedroom door and cooed, "That's my girl."

She peered into the open door and found one of the bedrooms converted to a study. Stacks and stacks of ancient tape-reel-style datacards cluttered a desk next to a tall database module. An Oroblam Terminal filled the left wall with records stuffed into its various cubbyholes. A rectangular table filled the back wall with a dozen stacks of sorted records awaiting download. At the far right stood another table surrounded and covered with the remaining crates of records that had yet to be opened.

"You'd think they'd give the only Jedi Knight an office in the Council Building," she retorted.

"Don't need one; I have a spare room." He sat down in the little desk chair and kicked himself over to the terminal to boot it up.

"Why don't you have a roommate like everybody else?"

Luke turned his chin with a smirk. "Guess."

Kess turned her eyes to the room and nodded to herself. _Same reason he didn't have a sex life._ Kess joined him inside the office and moved to the other wheeled chair in the corner. "Can't Artoo help with this?" She found a safe, empty surface for the blue bottle of sweetwater and swiveled the chair around.

Luke squinted at the screen for a moment. "Actually, he helps a lot. He downloads the tapes. But a sentient mind has to sort them to pick out the good stuff. He's with Threepio on the _Falcon_ , so I'll download today."

Kess crossed her legs and rested an elbow on her knee, ready for work. "So what are we looking for to set aside?"

Luke blinked, "All right." He swiveled around and rolled across the room to bump into an open box. He plucked out a thin, scratched datacard as his first example and tossed it to her. Kess took a datapad from the table and plugged it in. Luke rolled his chair against hers and leaned in, shoulder to shoulder so they could both see what was on it. More than once, he reached over and thumbed her thumb to page down or page up. He explained his process of identifying bits and pieces of information and the categories to which they belonged.

Kess attentively listened to the instruction as long as she could stand it but soon her focus drifted to the man sitting so close. He was too distracted with his explanation to notice so, for a moment, Kess just enjoyed it. She listened to the bounce of his voice, watched the muscles moving in his jaw, and recorded into memory the faint scent of clean soap on his skin. She watched the blue of his eyes dart from the stacks, to the database, barely glance at her, and back down again.

She realized that, alone, he laughed aloud, raised his voice, and showed signs of frustration. He didn't show so much emotion while they ran on the grinder or on Pad 14. Kess wondered before what that was all about, but his sister shined a light on it; just enough light to see there really was something hiding under there. _So you are human after all._

He began to roll backwards again, "...and all the other files go in that stack. I've only got rations to snack on so I'll treat whatever you want in South Base when we're done tonight. Sound good?" He swiveled around to get to work.

"No."

Luke blinked. It took concentration and guts to sneak that last line and make it sound completely innocent. He thought she'd jump for it. He looked over his shoulder at her.

"Dinner? I get a night off once a week, remember?"

Luke wrinkled his nose, "I didn't say we would _train_ —     

"The whole gang's going out to party tonight."

Luke sighed. "The girly girls are going out," he groaned and swiveled to the terminal. "Lock up the children."

"It's not just my roommates. We have other friends, y'know. There's going to be a whole crowd from what I hear."

Luke let out a sigh of depression. "Well, let's get started." He turned his back to her and slid the first stack towards his workstation.

Kess took the first card from the pile and barely glanced at it. She thought about sensing out to see if she could get through his block, but decided to it the old-fashioned way and just ask him. "You want to go with us?"

Luke looked at her like she was nuts. "Me?"

Kess almost laughed. "Yeah, you. Why is that so crazy?"

Luke shook his head, "Kess, I... I don't-"

Kess leaned over the little arm of her chair and giggled at him. "Well, if you're going to be a farm boy about it."

Luke turned back to face her, serious now. "Nobody likes to party with me hanging around. A lot of people get nervous around me. _You know that._ Besides you've got a bigger reason not to go out than I do."

Her brows flicked.

"There's at least one spy here on Yavin Base watching you and apparently has been for a while. So keep your eyes peeled." Luke yanked a card off the stack and punched it roughly into the database.

Kess batted her eyelashes at his back. "Awe, the living legend is worried about me."

Luke punched at the buttons on the front panel and whined softly, "Stop calling me that."

"Knight in shining armor." She watched his eyes narrow to shift back at her. She sang it with a roll of her eyes, "Defender of the _whole_ galaxy…" Her brows jumped up and down. "Can you catch bullets with your teeth?"

Luke leered at her. "The head of the Empire seems to want you very badly. I don't understand how you can joke about that."

"Are you kidding? The jokes and parties are what keep me sane." She turned her back to him and faced her own sorting. "I'm going to protect my social life whether you're worried about me or not. Besides, it's better than hanging out here pretending you _like_ Jedi data entry."

"Touché," he turned his back to her and tapped at the keyboard.

"Two, one," she smiled and picked up the first datacard victim.

"You don't get a point for that. I'm not speechless."

Kess' eyes smiled at the datacard like the cat who'd caught a mugrat. "Okay, but I get another shot at that point."

"Whatever."

Kess read aloud like a game show host repeating the Final Answer, "What _not_ to do while training a _female_ Jedi Apprentice!"

Panic splashed out on the Force the likes Kess had never witnessed.

In an instant, Luke rolled across the empty floor until his chair crashed against hers. Their knees bumped as he reached to grab the card from her hand, but Kess laughed brightly and stretched her arm as far over her head as she could, following her instincts to see just how far he was willing to go to get it back.

Luke's focus was so affixed on the datacard he didn't notice how close he was to being on top of her. It only lasted a split second, but the breath of her laughter dancing across his neck made him recognize where he was— broken chairs playing bumper cars, knees tangled, his arms stretched around her body.

All he had to do was reach five more centimetres to snatch the card from her hand, but that would mean smashing his body against hers.

And, for a moment, he forgot about the datacard altogether.

Luke stopped his own reaching and gripped the little arms of her chair before he toppled on top of her. He cowered there to keep his balance but smashed his eyes shut in a silent cuss at his own arousal.

Her throat shuddered to trap a wild giggle. Her back remained arched underneath his hovering body in the effort to reach the datacard as far away over her head as she could. She taunted, low and smooth. "Now do I get the point?"

Luke opened his eyes and glared. "Sure. One, two. My serve. Now give me the card."

And yet, he wasn't backing away.

Kess lifted her chin. A big smile blossomed. "I think I have a right to see this."

His heated eyes didn't flinch. "After your training."

"Awe, c'mon—

" _After_."

Their eyes locked. The air pulsed with craving, with invitation. For a moment, everything was visible on the Force.

If Kess didn't know any better…

But Kess knew better. Luke's hot glare spoiled with scolding as his hands gripped the arms of her chair and used them to push himself backwards across the floor. He rolled away, leering at her as if he won the exchange even though he still didn't have the card.

Since his attentions were clearly elsewhere, Kess kept her eyes coolly on his while slyly reaching for the datapad to plug it in. "Is there anything I'm allowed to do _before_ my training is over?"

"Yeah," he sneered with sarcasm, " _train_."

Her chin tucked comically, and Luke took the opportunity without a second thought. The glint in his eye kept her attention. His hand lifted quickly into the air and Force Pulled the card from her loosened grip. It sucked through the air and into his palm with a significant slap.

Kess barely had the chance to blink and see it go before he was tucking it into his breast pocket with dirty pride. His bare feet rolled his chair backwards away from her as far as he could get.

He gave her a dark-sided glint, "Two, two. Your serve," and turned back to the database.

Kess bit her lips together and turned back to the crates. _That was **so** worth losing a point._

 


	14. LL2 14 Ship Stat Report

LL2                                        14           Ship Stat Report

The _Millennium Falcon_ was back. The disc-shaped ship loomed at the fat end of Pad 14 near the travel way, taking up precious space needed for X-wings in pieces. Captain Solo sent a short message requesting someone take a look at a hull integrity problem on the topside. Lt. Lendra thought it best she assign that duty to herself until Solo expressly approved someone else touching his pile of junk. Besides, she had no one to spare to assign to the ship and she already knew that boat backwards and forwards anyway.

Kess climbed up through the top hatch and overlooked Pad 14 in all its military glory. X-wings hunched in two rows along the pie shape of the room. A dozen green jumpsuits and khaki uniforms were up and down, in and out of all of it. Two X-wings lowered through the open bay door in the ceiling as they came back from watch. The high whine echoed against the walls. Standing atop the _Millennium Falcon,_ Kess looked over all the X-wings and crew and let out a happy sigh.

But she got to work. Sea salt whitened the hull metal where it fused to the ship as they punched out of the Frakkan atmosphere. From far off, it made the ship look cleaner than it really was, but up close, there was just more dirt to chisel off the hull to get down to the real problems. Stepping carefully to the patch she once secured under fathoms of water, she knelt down to inspect the pale green, rock-hard, auto foam.

The patch held, thank the Force, but she would have heard about it long ago if it hadn't. There were about three liters of foam to clear (she punched the estimate into the datapad) and a breach of a half a metre that needed replacement (she made notes on that as well). What she repaired in a hurry at the bottom of the ocean was not only shoddy, but the patch metal was the wrong material entirely.

Standing tall again, she punched in more numbers and heard a voice call over the usual hubbub of the pad. "Wedge!" She glanced up to find Luke trotting out of the managers' office to the pilot who'd just landed. They met in the middle of the pad and turned to the locker room.

She thought for a minute about the guy behind the uniform and the lightsaber. Only on occasion would she get a glimpse of just Luke. He was just lonely, she told herself, and she had more than enough evidence to prove it. When he reacted warmly to her, he was reacting on simple loneliness, and then he would realize to whom he was talking and stop.

She often caught quiet smiles that, now, would be wiped from his face the minute she looked. He would laugh at a joke that would suddenly die. He would start talking about non-Jedi stuff and suddenly get back to business. Kess was tempted to dive into his rainbow cloud of emotion to see what was going on in there, but she knew better than to think she would get away with it without him detecting it.

Kess turned back to the _Falcon_ , trying to keep her mind on the issues at hand, and stepped forward to see why the port side top hatch wasn't working. She arrived at the hatch area and identified the problem immediately.

Where the hatch was supposed to slide aside to open (but didn't), where a hull breach was filled with autofoam, where she had fallen backwards into the ship screaming, "There's a big fish out here!" there were two, long, white teeth sticking straight up from the lime green sludge. The fish had taken a bite of the ship, the autofoam kicked in to stop the pressure leak, and trapped that poor animal to the hull as they flew into the sky.

Kess chuckled painfully, imagining the sight of the two-metre-tall creature flapping wildly against the side of the hull until they hit ozone where it exploded slowly into a million turquoise and fluorescent orange scales. The only thing left of the starving thing was its notorious dental wear.

* * *

"Well, her maze scores are excellent." Wedge pulled at the zipper to remove the red-orange flight suit. "But I want to see the film."

Luke rubbed his chin and he leaned against the locker next door. "Yeah, we'll look at the films of all three of them. I want to get this billet filled before next month."

"What happens next month?" Wedge tossed his boots into the locker and peeled the flight suit from the uniform underneath.

Luke shrugged and dropped his hand, "Nothing. I just don't like having an empty billet." As he thought about it, he caught Wedge eyeing him in consideration. "What?"

Wedge shrugged it off. "Nah. Never mind." He stepped out of the orange suit and started folding it up.

Luke waited a moment, shrugged and stood on his feet to leave.

"On second thought, I _will_ ask you," Wedge piped.

Luke turned back with patience and leaned his shoulder against his locker. "What?"

"Is your apprentice allowed to go out while she's training?"

Luke blinked and squinted. "She does it all the time."

Wedge hung the suit in the locker and put other things back into place. "No, I mean, can she _date_."

Luke's mouth fell open. His eyes rolled with his chin in a silent moan until the back of his head hit the locker behind him with a crash. "Oh, _no_ , Wedge! _Tell_ me you're kidding."

Wedge coughed a deep laugh. "Well, I have to say that is _not_ the reaction I expected out of you."

Luke stood up on his feet again, waving his palms and widening his eyes at the man. "Wedge, _please_ don't complicate this training any more than it already is."

Wedge's brows hiked into his forehead. He grinned and tightened his voice to a teasing octave. "Well, _gee whiz,_ Luke, I didn't realize it was already complicated."

Luke stopped his hands in the air and closed his eyes. He tried not to grin, but Wedge didn't need the Force to figure the rest of it out.

Wedge chuckled and explained before he got himself in trouble, "A friend of a friend asked me to do it as a favor. There's a big party coming up and they're worried Kess is working too hard. Their first choice was you, but I told them you'd never do it, especially while she's still in your command, so they asked me to do it instead." He shrugged a shoulder and checked his hair in a little mirror.

Luke rolled to his back and leaned heavier against the lockers. If he said 'no', he would have to explain why, and no idiot in the Alliance would believe that it was for wholesome Jedi reasons. And if he said 'yes', he was doomed to pretend he didn't care, even under the worst conditions. It was bad enough already, he could just imagine his fine Jedi peace if Kess started falling for somebody else while still in training.

Wedge shut the door of his locker and looked at him. "You guys are allowed to, aren't you?"

Blue eyes darted up, almost grinning, "As far as I know." He stood his full height and squared his shoulders. "Not yet. Ask me again in a couple weeks."

"What happens in a couple of weeks?"

Luke stepped away, "I have to explain Jedi Mating Rules to her first." They stepped out of the locker room and made their way through people and equipment towards the managers' office.

Wedge cocked a half-grin, muttering low to keep it private, "Do you _know_ Jedi Mating Rules?"

Luke turned to open the office door for him, "That's why I need a couple weeks."

Neilson was talking with an engineer at his desk and Teak was tapping away at his terminal. Luke strolled down the center aisle, staring at the floor.

Wedge approached his own desk. "One would think you'd have looked into that stuff by now."

Luke looked over two new reports on his desk, "I haven't had a reason to get into it."

Wedge spun in his chair and tried to soften his volume, "Are you telling me you have a reason now?"

Luke leered at his wingman to point out. "Only so I can answer _your_ request."

Wedge grinned at his friend and forced his mouth not to say the next wisecrack that popped in his head. He swiveled himself around to his terminal and whistled low and quiet.

Luke stepped around to sit back down at his desk and pick up the new reports as he went. The first report consisted of histbat results from yesterday's maneuvers, and he liked those numbers. The second was a ship stat report, but he did _not_ like those numbers.

Luke tossed the histbats aside and knitted his brows to read it again. His hand blindly reached for the commport on the wall behind him and blindly brought the link to his mouth.

"Lendra! Report to the managers' office! _Now_!"

The usual noise in the managers' office screeched to silence. Luke ignored them. He slapped the link down on his desk, rested his forehead in locked fingertips and read the report summary a third time.

**SHIP STATUS REPORT**

**Rogue Group / Pad 14**              

 **Lt. Lendra / Repair Supervisor**            

**page 1 summary**

**# craft cleared total-------2**          

**# craft cleared watches----2**

**# craft cleared maneuvers--0**

**# craft grounded---------10**

 

 

 


	15. LL2 15 Rogue Group Grounded

** LL2       15        Rogue Group, Grounded **

When Luke's shout blared from the speakers and echoed against the walls, Kess was hardly the only grease grunt to stop and look up from her work.

_Let the games begin._

Before disembarking the _Falcon_ , she squared her shoulders and straightened her coveralls. Kess strutted out across the pad to the office, not looking at (but seeing) the whole crew watching her march by. They watched her like she was obliviously marching to her doom and she knew why. Commander Skywalker never got irate enough raise his voice with anger, certainly not on the loud speaker, and they were terrified at what he might do.

Kess stepped in with confidence as if she had no idea what was up and didn't notice that he sounded upset.

Luke folded his hands on his desk and leaned forward. His drew his lips to a thin line as he stared at her across the room.

Wedge and Teak stayed safely behind their desks, knowing that something was up, but not what. Neilson waited behind his desk, letting Kess take the heat, as they agreed. A pilot ushered a repair out of the room behind Kess and someone outside swung the office door to close.

 _If they felt safer outside with the door closed, you'd think they wouldn't be sneaking around to the travel way to watch through the window either_.   

Kess set her boots and clasped her hands easily behind her, "Reporting as ordered."

Luke pointed at the report on his desk with a stiff index finger. "Tell me this is a typo."

Kess strolled up to his desk and glanced down at the summary just to verify they were talking about the same thing. She frowned sympathetically and shook her head as she stepped back again. "It's not a typo."

Luke's head dropped between his shoulders.

"We warned you about your clearing standards, Commander."

Luke pushed himself out of his chair and roughly stepped around his desk, pointing at the report, "I can override this."

Kess locked her knees and crossed her arms at her chest. She kept a quiet and professional tone. "Yes, _sir_ , as Group Commander you have the authority to override my report, but if your pilots get hurt because your ships are in snotty condition, it'll be your ass on the line, not mine."

Teak slowly swiveled away in his chair. Wedge's stood from his terminal but hung on the sidelines, squinting sideways at Kess like she'd lost her marbles.

Luke's voice was low, soft, and sounded barely contained from yelling. "You have grounded twelve of the Alliance's best pilots—

"I have grounded twelve of the Alliance's _worst craft_ , at a time of peace, so that your repair group can get your best pilots the best ships. Every last one of those X-wings has a fault that drastically reduces its capability."

Luke remained icily calm. "And what if we were not at a time of peace?"

"I'll clear everything that flies if we get attacked."

His eyebrows rose, "If Yavin is attacked, it'll be too late! You're talking about tearing down twelve birds simultaneously, which will take from two hours to two weeks to ready them to fly. I guarantee you the firefight will be over by then!" He was nearly yelling now.

"What would you suggest, Commander? You keep sending them up for maneuvers and the ground crew never catches up on the repairs. You _have_ to give us time to fix what you break!"

Luke huffed and rubbed his palms over his face, "Yeah, but do you have to ground all twelve?"

"My clearing standards are in my report. If you will so notice, _none_ of them pass. Every time a ship goes up for anything but a watch it comes down with more to fix that it began with. I need to ground all the ships long enough to catch up. You can do your watches with two ships, _sir_."

Luke faced her down and crossed his arms at his chest, "And how do you expect us to do that?" Luke wanted to hear the preposterous idea come out of her mouth.

Pilots didn't like other pilots flying their craft. The relationship was like a Tusken Raider and its bantha.

Kess set her chin, "Share."

Luke visibly gritted his teeth at her.

Wedge spurted out, " _Share_?"

Luke drilled his eyes into hers and hissed, "Kess, that two includes _mine_."

"That's 'Lieutenant Lendra' here, _sir_ , and yes, that includes your precious Rogue Five."

Neilson, having sat silently at his desk all this time, covered his face with a hand and a moan.

Luke glanced at him. "Did you approve this report?"

Neilson dropped his hand and set his jaw, "I did, sir."

Wedge coughed away a laugh.

Kess continued, "It is normal for the GC and the GL to have the two ships in the best condition. You are more experienced, you get hit less, and repair subconsciously takes better care of them."

Wedge caught his breath. "Mine too?"

"Yours too." Luke tossed the report onto Wedge's desk.

"Now, hang on!"

Luke set his hands on his hips and faced her. "So, how long do you plan to single-handedly ground _Rogue Group_?"

"I can have five up in four weeks and the rest depends on parts. Our estimate is three months for all twelve of them."

Luke leaned in and rattled clawed hands in her direction, "We can't do maneuvers with five ships!"

Kess finally gave in and raised her voice right back at him, "Well if your wingnuts would _stop_ getting **_shot_** you wouldn't _have_ that problem!"

They stared each other down a long moment.

Someone watching from the travel way cussed so loud they could hear it through the window.

Luke closed his eyes a moment and opened them on her again.

Kess lifted a brow. _You wanted them to stop being afraid of you._            

He raised an eyebrow back at her. Many people that worked for Luke Skywalker tried very hard not to do things that would make him mad and Luke realized just how hard they tried. He could feel the uncomfortable silence of the managers in the office and the breathless suspense of repair and pilots trying to eavesdrop outside or watch through the window. Led by his homegrown and gutsy Apprentice, his Repair Group had formed a completely legal mutiny.

The corner of his lip curled at her.

It was about time someone besides his family actually bucked him, yet the one person that kept him on a superhero pedestal was the same person refusing to let him stay on it.

It was a fine trait for a Jedi Knight.

He saw the humor in it but didn't let that show in his face. He looked back at Kess, crossed his arms, and spoke clearly and calmly. "So, _Lieutenant_ , how would you suggest I report to Admiral Drayson that his best group has been grounded for three months?"

Kess straightened her shoulders and answered like she was Threepio. "As the Group Commander, that is entirely your discretion, sir."

With a lowered chin and arms crossed over his chest, Luke stared at her for a long moment.

With a raised chin and arms crossed over her chest, Kess just grinned right back at him.

Finally, he adjusted his folded arms and spoke calmly again. Not only did he need to verify this out in the open with her, he needed the group to know it too. "You're not getting out of any training to do overtime here."

"Yes, Commander. I know."

"And you can't use any Jedi tricks to get you through a group overhaul."

"Yes, Master. I know that, too."

"All right, then," he said quietly, taking the ship stat report from Wedge and turning to the door. "I want all hands in the muster room by the time I get back from the Admiral's office."

Kess nodded.

Commander Skywalker stepped to the door and opened it, and the crowd scattered like roaches. As their fear began to subside in his wake, Luke felt tickled pink that Kess grew brave enough stand up against him in a group of relative strangers. He turned his back to Pad 14 and let eyes sparkled with delight as he marched to the elevator.

Kess blew out a long breath and collapsed her posture, but she was smiling.

Neilson stood from his desk. "You didn't have to yell at him," he scolded.

Kess pulled her shoulders back again. Her smile faded to calculate the billions of tasks suddenly on her list. "He heard me. That's what counts. Have you got that overhaul plan?"

Neilson had the datapad on his desk and ready. He handed to her, sighing away the tenseness of that conversation. Teak stood and stepped to her with a blue shimmering grin. "You should've warned us. I could've sold tickets to that."

Wedge stepped up behind Kess and handed up the commlink. "I think you've earned the honors."

Kess smiled again and took the link, moving to the door as she switched it on. Her voice carried out over the loud speaker as she came out of the door and marched to join the repair team. "Rogue Group, all hands report to the muster room. Rogue Group, all hands to the muster room."

 


	16. LL2 16 Wedge tries to get Luke to Party

** LL2       16        Wedge Tries to Get Luke to Party **

Every day was a long, exhausting stretch, but the weeks seemed to fly by faster than an A-wing at top speed. Lt. Lendra's success in grounding Rogue Group went straight to her confidence. The repair grunt within her fought for and protected the rights of everyone in Repair, down to the most trivial things, even if it meant having to pick a fight with the Commander or one of his pilots.

On the first day of the ground, fifty service members filtered out of the muster room and stood around awaiting the ballsy Lieutenant to kick off the overhauls repairs. Kess hurried to the supply locker, grabbed four different brands of FM radios and hustled out to the crowd, handing them to the first four repair grunts she saw. She strategically pointed to power outlets throughout the pad so that you could hear the music from every parked craft.

Neilson thoughtfully stepped up beside her and pointed. "Um, what are you doing?"

"We're gonna be working our butts off," she said without looking at him, "and I'll be damned if you're not gonna let us listen to music while we're at it."

Neilson pursed his lips. It was against regulations to have music on the pad at any audible volume, but what would you expect from a bunch of rebels anyway? The first three trotted off with the radios, but Seidrik paused, looking to Neilson and then down the row to where Commander Skywalker was watching all this.

Neilson looked to see Skywalker standing tall and firm as if giving the repair crew as much rope as they wanted with which to hang themselves.

Neilson and Seidrik exchanged looks again. Neilson jerked his chin for Seidrik to go do it. A smile grew on Seidrik's face as he turned and trotted away.

Commander Skywalker ended up helping out greatly when he mustered the pilots for maneuver review. The flyboys stayed in the muster room for the rest of that week picking apart the technical details of dog fighting. It was a relief that, for a while, all those impatient wing nuts were out of her hair.

Luke watched as the members of Rogue Repair were slowly motivated completely out of his control. Kess wasn't demanding or bossy, but her confidence in the ground plan and her quick, decisive suggestions brought even Neilson to follow her orders without realizing it. She did not use her apprenticeship to her advantage, nor did she ever need to pull rank. What few Force skills she used were completely undetectable by everyone else.

Airman Froda was constantly late and all too often ran into the muster room just as Commander Skywalker started his pass down, disrupting the whole meeting but still making muster on time. So Kess suggested Neilson not allow anyone not in the muster room once pass down began. It took only a few people to make the mistake for a few days before several airmen were marked late. Records quickly reflected habits, Airman Froda and others changed those habits before there were enough incidents to put them on report.

Kess also had all the R2 units fitted with double-jointed clamp arm then programmed them to identify all of the common hand tools. Now, when a grunt was stuffed into, or otherwise had their hands full with, a piece of an X-wing, an R2 unit stood by with a plate of tools, handing over whatever was asked for. The new procedure cut down on time, fumbling accidents, and, for some tasks, the need for two people.

When parts were too slow to come, she suggested Neilson dress up in a clean and pressed uniform and ordered him out to the other pads. He grumbled about improper use of the Chain of Command, but she snapped back like a wise mother, "You're not 'ordering' anybody to do anything. All you have to do is stroll up to the Deck Sups and ask very casually if they have any spares. All they will see is your rank and Rogue patch and they will trip over themselves to help you." She shrugged, "and if they don't, they don't."

Neilson left pessimistically but returned later that afternoon with a box full of parts. Wedge and Teak were astonished at his success, but Luke sat back in his chair and laughed.

XXXxxxXXXxxxXXXxxxXXXxxxXXX

Piles of small electrical and mechanical parts scattered the dining table around a soldering iron that was smoking in its stand. Luke hunched over the small project and narrowed his eyes at his nearly complete prototype when the doorbell buzzed.

"Come in, Wedge."

Wedge strutted in wearing sharp civvies and stopped in the middle of the floor to spread his palms. "You're not dressed yet?"

Luke looked at his lap to verify, yes, he _was_ wearing clothes. He looked to Wedge with a confused eye.

Wedge slid onto the other chair at the table. "The party? Don't you remember?"

Luke sighed, rolled his eyes, and turned his attentions back to his project. "I remember. Kess left a few hours ago to get ready for it."

"All the more reason for you to go."

Luke looked at him hard. "Wedge, _she's in my command_."

Wedge eyed him back. "And whose fault is that?"

Luke dismissed that and whined, "Wedge, I told you I wasn't going. What are you doing here?"

"Luke, you hide in this damned apartment and you never go out to have any fun. You've got to get out and start showing people you're human."

"I am human," he mumbled.

"But you don't act like it! You used to party with us all the time. You haven't been out with us since Hoth."

"Wedge! Don't start! I don't party anymore because I've got a lot on my mind and I have a lot of work to do." He sneered, "You're acting like it's Victory Day or something."

Wedge stood from the table. "The day I get you to go to a blasted party, it will be Victory Day, pal."

Luke ignored him and focused on securing the pommel cap.

Wedge folded both forearms on the table and lowered his voice at the man. "If you don't get out there soon, Kess Lendra is gonna end up in someone else's arm."

Luke's eyes shot up.

Wedge's brows lifted at the reaction. "That's what I thought."

Luke closed his eyes and waved the man off. "Cut it out. Get out of my hair, will you?"

Wedge pushed to his feet and began to stroll away. "Fine, I'll go chase girls and you just sit here and play with your," he waved his hand at the contraption on the table, "thingy."

Luke fought a smirk, "Just go."

Wedge took a step back over to the table. "Is that another lightsaber?"

Luke stood from the table and grabbed the cylinder with both hands. "Sort of. It a dud. For practice. It's not supposed to cut through mass."

But the dud turned on with the same **_SNAP-VROOM_** as any other lightsaber. This one was different only for its snowy white blade. Luke waved it around in the air for a second as they both watched it waver and moan through the humidity just like Luke's green one did.

Wedge admired the concept, "Does it work?"

The Jedi grinned. "Don't know yet." Luke pulled the blade over his shoulder and started to swing it like a bat hitting aiming at Wedge's thigh. He stopped long before the actual swing.

Wedge dashed backward anyway. "I don't think so."

Luke chuckled, switched it off, and sat back down. "Tell everyone I said hello."

Wedge turned away in defeat, "All right. Maybe next time."

 


	17. LL2 17 South Base Warehouse

** LL2       17        South Base Warehouse **

The South Base warehouse was once an overflow barracks for some of the Rebellion's lower ranks during the Battle of Yavin days. The permatemp building received some structural damage, making it non-transportable, and was left behind when the Rebellion fled to Hoth with their tails between their legs. When they returned to the planet years later, the New Alliance had more governmental supporters ( therefore, more money) to build stronger, permanent buildings for their first visible base. The warehouse was forgotten by most, yet the guys from the early Rebellion could not forget the party it held that the day when young Luke Skywalker blew up the first Death Star, and saved all of their lives.

The gang that set this up worked hard with what they had. They managed to "borrow" a bunch of emergency yellow floodlights and set them up in various places in and outside the building. A group of Repair grunts formed themselves a band and played in the local pubs on occasion. They were there too, set up in full gear and high volume, playing hit songs from one system's culture to the next. The bar that filled the back wall, the gambling tables in the corner, and the seating around the outside of the giant room were all built with whatever spare furniture they could find, including the tables and bunks that were originally in the warehouse back when it was still a barracks. The place looked like a giant playhouse for grammar kids, except, of course, for the abundance of alcohol.

A quarter-klick of the jungle carved out for construction vehicles long ago now left a makeshift parking lot of mud and trampled grass outside the rickety building. The parking lot was already half-filled with speeders when dusk vanished and the news spread like wildfire. Bodies of all breeds were arriving deep into the night, but mostly the lower ranks of the fleet. The girlies showed up just after nightfall and were already giggling madly when they poured out of Yana's speeder, dressed for the kill, and ready to pounce the first good-looking guy to walk along.

Kayla strutted into the warehouse with a purpose, grinned deviously at Kess before they dove into the festivities, and scanned the crowd for a pair of men to accost. Kess shook her head in warning but knew there was nothing she could do about it. Yana whipped her chestnut hair aside with pride, more comfortable in attacking prospective targets alone, and Joanne searched the crowd for that hot Chief she wouldn't shut up about. As the girlies blended in with the dancing bodies, and voices faded in with the loud music, Kess followed behind and grinned. She missed this stuff.

Kayla and Kess each had a shot of Retago just to get started and sipped on mixed drinks with Retago in them to keep going. In search of a place to sit down and get inebriated, they danced as they moved across the large, crowded floor, and found a vacant bunk with a battered mattress pushed sideways up against the wall. "So, girly girl," Kayla smiled as she got comfortable, "What are you in the mood for? A human? Maybe a Twi'lek? How about that Nubian over there?"

"Kayla, please," Kess groaned.

Kayla ignored her, "Maybe you're in the mood for certain style tonight. How 'bout an engineer like us, or a nice quiet pencil pusher?"

"I'm not in the mood at all, okay. I just want to get drunk and have a good time."

Kayla looked at her friend in the pale yellow light, "Or maybe I could talk you into blond and blue eyes. Y'know, a pilot, a Commander, a—

"Kayla, no. I already got in enough trouble for that Jedi joke on the air."

"I know." Kayla's smile faded slightly, "but you didn't mind getting in trouble with me before. You've gotten mellow on me."

Kess laughed at her, "I've always been mellow! You were just too busy man-hunting to notice."

"No, girly. You're more mellow. It's like you've got some deep subject on your mind, _all the time_. I'm starting to think you're gonna end up as quiet and reserved and as boring as that galactic hero you've been hanging out with."

Kess straightened her posture and lifted her chin. "The Jedi superiority comes naturally with the training."

Kayla sputtered out her drink and shoved Kess' shoulder. When they were done giggling, Kayla wiped her eyes to make sure her mascara wasn't running. "Look, my friend, either you are going to admit that there is something going on between you and Commander Saves-the-Day or I'm gonna drag you out to find somebody to flirt with. Now, what is it gonna be?"

Kess groaned stubbornly, "There's got to be a third option in there somewhere."

A new group of people arrived at the wide open doors every few seconds. The Rebels didn't have parties this big outside Victory Day. Kess was beginning to wonder if there was a special occasion that spawned all this or if it was just a friendly get-together that grew like a disease. The warehouse grew crowded enough that Kess could use the excuse that they would lose their seats in order to argue Kayla out of getting up to dance with someone. She wasn't shy to mention that the intoxicated buzz was growing into a monster and Kayla was content for the moment to let her friend just sit and get drunk. She planned to interrogate as soon as Little Miss Jedi was too plastered to know which way was up.

Yana joined them at the bunk a little later, slumping about the lack of respectable targets, but Yana was picky with her men. She sat down next to Kess on the bunk and joined in on the snickering. Joanne found her Chief and was doing rounds throughout the building. Every time she passed the bar, she picked up four Retago shots, and then made her way to the bunk where she passed them out. Thus, the girlies were doing shots together every fifteen minutes. With that, and the various drinks given to them from men as dancing bait, the girls quickly realized that they wouldn't have to get up all night long.

The crowd grew to where they could no longer see the door or the bar from where they sat, and hoards of people were standing in little circles of conversation all around them. Many friends stopped by the bunk to chat for a minute. Kess didn't notice that the one's she _didn't_ know were greeting her by name. She was too drunk to care, and called out a slurred, "Howya doin'!" to everyone that talked to her whether she recognized them or not.

Eventually, Kess lost count on the Retago shots, lost track of what time it was, and totally forgot that there was a lightsaber attached to her belt. The giggling had grown into bad jokes and all out laughter when, right in front of them, one guy roughly pushed another.

The second man turned quickly and sailed his fist into the first man's jaw, and the crowd pulled back to create a bubble of space for the two of them to go at it. Kess, Kayla, and Yana pulled their legs onto the bunk and huddled to stay out of the way. The music stopped and the yelling started. When the blood started spraying from the two men, a dark-haired guy in the crowd stepped up to the bunk and yelled at Kess furiously, "Aren'tchya gonna do something?"

Her eyes darted around to verify that he was talking to her and squinted at him. "What? Why me?"

The one that was losing the fight fell to the ground in a lump and twisted his body around to kick up in defense. Kayla leaned over to Kess and stressed, " _Do_ something."

Kess turned her snarled lip at Kayla and realized that nobody else was going to do anything because they were all expecting her to. Not even sure what to do, she slid forward on the bunk and dodged the fists as she stood. By that time, one was on top of the other and they were wrestling violently on the dirty floor. Kess wrung her hands for second and lowered her head close to the both of theirs. She had to put her hand on the floor to keep from falling over. They didn't notice her until she yelled out at the top of her lungs, " _STOP_!"

The building went silent. The two men stopped fighting and looked up at her in surprise. Kess stood straight again, in shock of their reaction, and watched the two bleeding men stand and adjust their twisted clothing. They seemed to try to stand at attention in front of her and waited as if expecting punishment.

Kess was no Commander. She glanced back at Kayla in complete confusion, but Kayla kicked her lightly in the leg. "Go on."

A little nervous with this unearned power, she looked at the men. "So what's going on?"

The one that started it spoke first. "He was tryin' to steal my woman!" he stopped short to catch the blood that dribbled from his mouth when he talked.

Kess looked at the other. "And you?"

The other guy just shrugged at her, then looked over at the woman who was clearly the source of the argument.

Kess was a little insulted at the attacker's claim. The New Alliance legal and social structures were based on total equality between races. Even the droids had rights. Kess scratched her chin in thought, not really caring who was right. She just wanted them to stop, the music to start, and her to go back to her giggling and drinking. She looked at the first guy and very seriously asked, "Do you have a receipt?"

He blinked back.

"For purchasing the 'woman'?" Kess suggested. "If you have a receipt you can go to security and press charges for theft. If you don't have a receipt, I guess that leaves it up to her."

The man clenched his teeth. "Yes, ma'am." He turned away. The crowd parted in front of him, giving him a wide path to the door.

The other one looked at Kess and muttered, "Sorry, Lieutenant." He turned to the woman, shook his head, and walked to the restrooms in the opposite direction.

Kess gave the woman a look of disappointment, which was clearly understood before the woman ran to catch up with her beat up boyfriend. Once all three members of the dilemma left the scene, the crowd began to mingle again and, a minute later, the music started back up.

Kess spun around to the bunk with her hands out in the air and asked as she stumbled back to it, "Sssomebody tell me why that worked."

Yana busted out in rioting laughter and Kayla shook her disappointed head at her drunken, thick-sculled, naïve, Jedi friend.

 


	18. LL2 18 Lightsaber v Fencing Sword

** LL2       18        Lightsaber v Fencing Sword **

After the incident, acquaintances were passing by to tell Kess 'good job', and 'we gotta have you at the rest of the parties, just in case.' Joanne abandoned her man and squeezed in with them on the bunk because she said it was 'safer there'.

Kess didn't want to believe the truth that was haunting her conscious and cried out in frustration, "But I didn't _do_ anything!"

"You didn't have to, Kess." Wedge walked up from the crowd with a drink in his hand and a smile on his face. "All you have to do is speak, and they will jump."

"Commander Antilles!" She called out, "Howya doin'?"

"That's 'Wedge' when I'm not in uniform, and I would be doing much better if I could have gotten Luke to attend this little shindig." He sat down on the edge of the bunk and looked over the four drunk women sitting in a row. "Hello, ladies."

Kess pulled her cup up to her lips with a snicker, "Why did you even try?"

Wedge was still sober. "He acts like the weight of the universe is on his shoulders and I will continue to try to get him to relax for as long as I live." He sipped his cup and looked at her, "It seems you've been able to shake off that Jedi monotony so far. I hope you don't lose your festive side when he gives you that blasted pin."

Kess remembered the man that she was getting drunk just to forget. "Yeah, well. I get in trouble for it a lot more often than you guys think. He never said I couldn't have fun, but he _sure_ doesn't like it when I try."

Wedge smirked, "He's just jealous."

Kess thought on that for a second, about the fight between the men a moment ago. She started to laugh, "Can you imagine _him_ on a jealousy streak? Getting into fisticuffs at a party over some girl? Ha!"

Wedge looked at her like she was crazy, "No. And I really don't want to. So you just watch yourself."

"Why?" Kess yelled. "Why _me_? Why do _I_ have to watch myself just because that _farm boy_ hasn't convinced himself he's human yet?"

Wedge raised a black eyebrow at her.

Joanne peeped. " _Ding_. Fries are done."

"Yep, she's drunk." Yana reached over and gently pulled Kess' cup out of the woman's hands and scolded Wedge. "What took you so long?"

Kayla complained openly at the man, "You were supposed to get her mind _off_ the guy."

Wedge rubbed his chin and shook his head at Kayla. His hand went up in the air as a shrug. "I couldn't do it. Her Master denied me permission."

Kess was hearing all this, but too drunk to respond to any of it.

Joanne was astounded. "He actually said 'no'?"

Wedge grimaced in his answer, "It was more—

A long, thin, shiny piece of metal appeared in front of Kess' face and halted all conversation on the bunk. Eyes followed the fencing blade to the man that held its other end. The handsome face grinned a lady-killer smile. Rett flipped the sword around and offered the hilt to Kess. "You, my dear, never came back to fencing class."

"Rett!" Kess brightened. She snatched the hilt from the air and scrambled off the bunk. "Howya' doin'?"

He had another fencing sword in his other hand. "I've been gettin' bored with that new guy, dammit." His grinned like a predator baiting his prey. "You better show me what you've got before I slice you up!"

As they moved to face each other with the swords hanging defensively between them, the crowd again grew a large bubble. As Rett saluted with the blade, Kess was able to focus her foggy eyes enough to ensure that it was a dull fencing sword. Though one could slap the metal hard on a body and inflict a little pinch, no one would draw blood or slice anything off. (They risked poking out an eye, of course, but since nobody's mother was here, nobody thought of that.) Damage wasn't Rett's intent anyway. They used to have a lot of fun together dueling it out in Lokey's class.

She saluted and stepped back into a defense position, wobbling on her drunken legs. "Rett, I think I maybe too drunk for this."

Rett grinned wider and with two, quick, taunting taps on her blade. "Naw. Never too drunk. Just too scared."

Kess backed up another step. Adjusted her balance and raised the sword to defend. He attacked again, lunging forward and slicing the air only to have her instincts block his moves. Kess rubbed her eyes with her free hand as the other just blocked the lunges under some invisible control. She kept stepping backwards for balance, and eventually tripped backward over a recently emptied chair. Kess started giggling from the floor but still managed to bring her feet back underneath her and block the next swing anyway.

Something about being at this exact level of intoxication had her following _only_ her instincts and none of her intelligence.

The grin on Rett's face grew ironic that his partner was so drunk she could hardly stand and yet she was defending herself without effort. He grew a little frustrated with this stalemate and yelled out to her, "Fight me, dammit! Get op and attack!"

Kess huffed with impatience. She wasn't in the mood for all this exercise tonight. It was what she came here to avoid! But the best way to get this over with was to kick his ass. She pushed back to her feet and forced a sharpened focus. Her posture straightened and her face went stone cold sober.

A shadow crossed Rett's face when he saw the change in her eyes and barely brought up his blade in time to block the oncoming attack.

Kess kept her eyes on him as she stepped forward and swung. Rett almost ducked by reflex alone and shuffled backwards. She came at him with swift taps from all directions. He stood tall, but his grin faded as the desperation grew to defend himself from the onslaught.

Kess reminded herself that she hadn't gone through any lightsaber melee training with Luke, aside from simply blocking shots from the remote. All of this sudden ability to fence well came from what she learned at Lokey's fencing classes combined with the newly refined ability to use the Force. Her ability had improved so much that she started to grow arrogant.

She backed Rett up to the wall when she spied one of the many observers with a drink in his hand. In a sudden desire to show off, Kess grabbed the drink and gulped while her sword arm was still guarding herself against Rett. The cup was so large that, when she drank, the rim covered her eyes.

Rett took the opportunity to lunge at her stomach.

Kess felt it on the Force before it happened but was stabbed with a nub in the stomach anyway. She dropped the cup in her stumble and bumped into another observer. The crowd laughed at her. Several bystanders reached and caught Kess before she really fell. The cup tumbled down her front, soaking her clothes and her lightsaber hilt with sticky red alcohol.

Rett lowered his guard and stepped up to her, offering a hand. "Are you all right, lass?"

Kess grumbled a complaint about spilling the drink and quietly thanked the strangers for catching her fall. Half of the party began to drift away. The band climbed back to their corner to pick up their instruments. Kess yanked the lightsaber off her belt as smiled with embarrassment at Rett. "I told you I was too drunk for this."

"But you were winning!" Rett took her by the arm to help steady her on legs of jelly. He watched her wipe the excess alcohol off the lightsaber hilt and look it over. "Is it damaged?"

Kess pulled from his arm, backed up, and turned it on. As if they didn't already have it, the loud **_SNAP-VROOM_** and the amber blade of light yanked everyone's attention again.

This time, the entire building went silent. The bubble of space in the crowd grew significantly larger.

Kess looked around at everyone taking a big back step. She sensed the spikes of caution and fear all over the room and Kess cackled with amusement at it. She slashed down at the fencing sword still hanging from Rett's hand and sliced the thin stick in two. The echo of the metal piece clattering on the pavement was drowned only by Kess' mad laugh. "I won!"

Kayla snapped her fingers in front of Joanne's staring eyes and started scrambling off the bunk. Yana shuffled to her feet and Wedge motioned Rett to back up and get out of the way.

The girly girls stalked at Kess from all directions, palms out, voices soft. "Kess, honey, put the lightsaber down."

Wedge squared himself directly in front of her, well out of reach of the blade, and searched her drunken vision to catch her gaze.

Kess saw him, and recognized him, and her laughter sobered. The humming of the lightsaber glowed in the silence of the crowd.

"He really said 'no'?"

"Turn it off," Wedge instructed carefully.

Kess gripped the hilt and gritted her teeth. "But why would he say, 'no'?"

" _Turn it off_ ," Wedge repeated.

Kess looked down to find her lightsaber was lit in her hand and, without a care, she thumbed it off. She tossed it carelessly across the space at Wedge and glared at the man for answers to her angry questions, "But--

But the moment the blade light disappeared, Kayla grabbed Kess' wrist out of the air, Yana stepped up behind her to keep her from falling backwards, and Joanne tucked to her side to hold her up by the waist.

Wedge walked the hilt back to the group and slapped it against the front of Kayla's shoulder with a scold. " _This_ is why they don't go to parties."

Shaking his head and rolling eyes, and finally groaning a grin over the whole thing, Wedge stepped out of the way so the girly girls could carry the woman home to safely sleep it off.

 


	19. LL2 19 Hangover

** LL2       19        Hangover **

The bedroom was dark, but the streetlights glowed in through the window to bathe the bed in bluish light. She felt the bare skin on her cheek and cuddled deeper into his arms. The cool sheets lightly covered her body and accented the warmth of his skin where her bare leg was draped over his. He stirred, brushing his fingertips across her back and wrapped his arm around her.

"Luke?" she whispered.

"Hm?"

A syrupy voice pierced the peace and quiet. "GOOD MORNING! IT IS ZERO FIVE-FIFTY-EIGHT!"

That's when the jackhammer punched her in the brain and dislodged her from that awesome dream.

Kess was too afraid to open her eyes. Through her lids, she could tell it was bright sunlight coming in through the window. That strong body she thought she was cuddling to was actually a sticky pillow and she was fully clothed. But she swore she heard his voice. Kess concentrated to dive headlong back into it that gorgeous dream.

"GOOD MORNING!" Kess didn't remember turning up the volume of the computerized alarm, but it was certainly louder today than yesterday. "IT IS ZERO FIVE-FIFTY-NINE!"

Kess grimaced into the pillow. Somewhere in her half-consciousness, like he was hiding behind a cloud, she could feel him, she could hear him, but it was all just a dream. He was like a hologram, standing right in front of her, clear as day, but there was nothing solid to grab hold of. She would give anything to just go back to sleep into _that_ dream, a dream where he loved her back… but it was just a dream.

Kess draped her arm across the pillow as if it were the chest of a friend consoling her broken heart but, she reared back from it. _Why is the pillow sticky?_ She patted the pillow and vaguely remembered the drink tumbling down her clothes. She patted her clothes to find she was still fully dressed for the party. Her memory flickered through visions of Wedge, of Rett, of a fencing blade, of a lightsaber, and the part when she was the only one in the big room still laughing. _I won!_          

Kess grunted into the pillow, "Oh geez."

"Good morning. It is zero six hundred."

_0600!!_

Kess sat up straight. She was supposed to be on the grinder with Luke almost an hour ago.

She grabbed her pounding head and moved to the closet to change into her running sweats. Her frantic and maneuver stopped when she heard a knock on the door.

Kess hit the door control with one hand and yanked her sweats out of the closet with the other.

"Why hurry now?" Luke said icily. "You're already late."

Kess stopped in her tracks.

Luke crossed his arms and leaned against the door jam to stare at her. The hint of humor on his mouth was as visible as the anger in his eyes.

Kess froze in position, eyeing him with extreme caution.

After a beat, Luke pulled his shoulder off the door jam and shifted to leave. His voice was soft and almost humored. "Yana was kind enough to offer me some java juice to wait for you." He moved to leave, "So you don't have to rush."

"Are we still going running?" Kess almost hoped that her tardiness would convince him to skip that part altogether.

Luke lowered his voice as he eyed her this intense truth, "Farther than you can possibly imagine."

Her eyes widened until he broke the stare and left the room, at which time she ripped off her clothes and jumped in the shower in an even bigger panic than before.

He said little as they strolled to the grinder and didn't give any hints about whether or not he knew the events that took place at the party. He acted like the perfect drill sergeant when one of his troops came on duty with a hangover and began talking loudly just to annoy her condition.

When they reached the grinder, Luke voice had raised to a shouting, "HOW ARE YOU FEELING?!"

Kess grumbled at him, "Don't yell, please."

Luke nearly grinned. "I'M NOT YELLING! WHY?! DO YOU HAVE A _HANGOVER_?"

Kess glared at him and spoke quietly, "I'm going to start running now. You just let me know when I'm done, okay?" She trotted off and thanked the Maker that three-quarters of Yavin Base were still sleeping off their own hangovers. Not many of the thousands of people in those barracks would be peeking out the windows to watch them today.

Luke crossed his arms and stood in that same spot while she ran around the half kilometre the first time. She didn't look at him, but he yelled into her ear as she passed. "HAVING FUN IS _NOT_ A SIN! BUT YOUR DUTY COMES _FIRST_!"

Kess closed her eyes and kept running, but slowly. She was sure the battery would end sooner if she let him have his way. She came around again for the second pass, already panting because of her lack of sleep.

There was a twinkle in Luke's eye when he shouted at her, "YOU'RE RUNNING AWFULLY SLOW! MAYBE A NICE DIP IN THE SWAMP WILL WAKE YOU UP!"

Kess glared at him as she passed, jogged away again, and held the side of her pounding head. Luke was enjoying this and that just pissed her off.

She nearly slowed to a walk by the time she came around the third time. Her head hurt so badly that eyeballs were throbbing, her chest heaved for oxygen, and every step felt like the bones in her legs were splintering. She grabbed her head with both hands and collapsed onto her knees.

Luke stomped over to her and crouched down with his hands on his knees. "DON'T STOP! KEEP RUNNING!"

Kess slapped her hands over her ears and shut her eyes tight. Her head felt like it was about to explode.

Luke didn't feel at all guilty about putting her through the torture. "DOES IT HURT?"

"Yes, it hurts." She cried. She opened her mouth to speak again but groaned instead.

Luke stomped over, his humor gone. "Get up." He grabbed her hand and pulled the dead weight to her feet. "C'mon, get up."

Kess wavered on her legs and slapped her hand back over her ear as soon as he let it go.

Luke put his hands on her shoulders and tried to look her in the eye.

Her eyes remained shut tight with physical pain and emotional guilt.

He lowered his volume to a soothing tone. "Find your peace."

She squeezed her face as if to retreat from it all. A tear squeezed from her eye.

Luke lightly shook her shoulders, whispering. "Hey."

Kess peeked painfully open to find him there, to see his brow lift that everything was going to be okay, that he wasn't going to yell anymore.

"Find your peace," he repeated softly.

She sighed hard and closed her eyes. She reached into her emotions with the Force senses and dug through a cloud darkened with pain until she touched on the white wisps of peace underneath.

His voice was gentle now, "Now wash it over the pain."

The concentration of her Force senses pressed into the white peace and smeared over the violet syrup. Her throbbing headache melted away and, with a tremulous sigh, Kess opened her eyes. She kept her senses working, spreading the white cloud over every dark spot in her emotions.

She was feeling better by the second. Kess rolled her shoulders back and blinked, alert and amazed.

Luke's blue eyes smiled. He stepped backwards as he pointed victoriously at her. "Now _that,"_ he nodded with a growing chuckle, "is how you get rid of a hangover."

She sneered at him, "Why didn't you teach me that _before_ you made me run?"

Luke shrugged a guilty, boyish grin, "You had to earn it."

She didn't feel the annoyance and the desire to _beat_ him like she usually would, but decided to beat him anyway. "You son-of-a-!"

Kess bolted out into a run at him.

Luke turned on his heels and ran away with a laugh. They fell into a jog side by side as their laughter echoed against the dozens of barracks buildings where thousands of service members still lay sleeping.

 


	20. LL2 20 Dud Lightsabers

LL2       20        Dud Lightsabers

Kess draped an elbow on the armrest, hardly noticing the velocity in which the sports speeder raced through the jungle. Luke barely said a word to her all day and she was too busy trying to figure out what was wrong with Rogue One's shield generator to notice his silence.

This trip was routine. He drove his usual speed without looking at her, skidded to a stop in front of Toban Ridge, and hopped out. Kess climbed out, preoccupied, and met him at the speeder trunk where she took the water bottle tote and he took the duffel. They walked back to the clearing, detached and distracted, but not cold or unpleasant.

When he reached the clearing, he crossed over the fallen log and squatted on the ground to dig through the duffel. When Kess reached the clearing, she swung her legs over and sat on it a moment. Her eyes stretched away in thought. "Wait. When was the last time the shield software was updated?"

Luke's eyes stretched up to look at her through overgrown bangs.

Kess found his eyes and grinned. "I'm just thinking out loud."

"Uh hunh." He returned to his rummaging. "Your attention still isn't where it should be."

Kess rolled her eyes and wondered if he scolded her like that because of real Jedi training or just because he liked it when her attention was on him.

Luke wandered out to the space of the clearing and switched on his green blade. **_SNAP-VROOM!_**

Thus far, all of the lightsaber training was with her own. This was the first time she saw the green blade since the Frakkan System. Kess yanked her attention away from Rogue repair and into this clearing of Jedi Training where her attention was supposed to be.

Guarded, she watched and awaited instruction.

Then Luke pulled up another lightsaber hilt with his other hand and **_SNAP-VROOM!_** now he had two.

Kess checked her hip for hers the same moment she realized the second one wasn't amber. Luke was holding them side by side to compare the blades, one green, one white.

Kess bleated, "You built them without me!"

"You were at a party."

Kess felt the pang of regret that she missed all the fun by going to a stupid party.

Luke grinned secretly at her reaction.

He turned off both lightsabers and latched his own back on his belt. He then reached into the duffel to pluck out a third hilt. He tossed it at her without caring if she was ready to catch it and without looking where it was going to land. He strolled to the other end of the clearing.

Kess was a split second late, but she popped off the log to catch the hilt out of the air. It was clumsy, but she _did_ sense when it was coming and she _did_ Force Pull it into her hand (kind of.) Kess fumbled to get it into her grip and Thought a nasty name at him.

Luke folded his grin shut and backed up the last three paces at the opposite end of the clearing. He watched and waited for her to do exactly what he expected her to do.

Kess settled against the log with the dud lightsaber, brought the new hilt close to her nose and started opening it up so she could study the electronics inside—

**_SNAP-VROOM!_ **

Eyes widened, Kess peeked beyond the hilt in her hand to see the other white blade hanging by Luke's side.

Luke bounced on his toes with adrenaline. Blue eyes shined at her with intent.

 _Oh, snot!_           

Kess tightened the pommel back up and stood cautiously. "Have you tested them yet to make sure they're safe?"

Luke spread his feet on the ground raised the blade. "No," he lied, "but if you don't turn it on, you'll find out before I will."

Kess stumbled backward into the log, frantically turning on the dud saber. The sound of it hissed unevenly as the blade wavered in the air. Luke dashed forward and brought down his blade on her like a mining pick. Kess ducked her head, fell backwards into the log, and held up her blade with a locked elbow.

The sabers spat as they crashed together. She opened one eye and looked meekly up at Luke face behind the crossed blades.

Luke shook his head and whined, "C'mon, you can do better than that." He stepped backward again, pulling his blade from hers. He created a big space between them before he brought up his guard again.

Kess stood up straight, adjusted her shoulders, and set her feet apart in the mud. With a careful sigh, she brought up her guard, and Luke came at her again. She managed to knock his blade to the side and dashed in the opposite direction, trembling briefly as she moved.

Luke strutted around her in a half-circle, nodding with a smile, "Better."

He readied his guard, adjusted his feet, and swung from the side. Kess stretched to bring her blade vertical enough to stop it and used a move of desperation to knock his blade away.

Luke smiled gritting teeth, but he didn't pull back to re-adjust. Still stepping in a circle, he tapped her blade and faked a lunge. Kess moved to block a blade that was no longer there. She barely saw the white glow out of the corner of her eye when his blade came hard at her other shoulder.

The sting sliced through her arm and Kess went tumbling to the ground in a cry of pain.

Luke's smile vanished to something cold and unsurprised. He backed up in the space to let her recover on her own.

Kess huddled on her knees to hold her upper arm and sneered at him. "That _hurt_!"

His eyes were elsewhere and his voice was tense. "It was supposed to."

Her eyes hardened. She jumped up, ignoring the sting, and growled as she came at him with her blade. Luke brought up his sword and blocked it. She attacked with swift throws and backed him up to the bushes.

His grin returned as his feet trampled over thick vines behind him. He sang with a chuckling warning, "Keep you temper."

She paused in a ready stance and huffed once. The sting in her shoulder was already gone. She saw the twinkle in his eye as he stepped out of the vines and then Luke started to laugh at all this.

Kess tried to stay mad, but even her snarl was smiling. She growled out again and attacked.

Luke's eyes widened with a little yelp of surprise, but he ducked and pulled away, guarding, blocking, attacking, parrying... and they spent a better part of an hour playfully dueling it out.

 


	21. LL2 21 Sex Life

** LL2       21         Sex Life **

The duel drifted away of the clearing and deeper into the jungle. Each attack sent one moving backward and the counter attack usually pushed the other in a different direction. They bounced like a football through the shrubbery, laughing when they won and growling in jest when they screwed up. Romping around like felines at play, neither one noticed when serious training mutated into a giggling frolic.

Kess ran until she found an opening in the trees. Dusk shined down through the canopy in fuzzy circles. She stopped and spun, bringing the blade up to block the other one just in time. Luke danced out of the bushes with clean laughter echoing through the forest. He pulled back and paced around, giving them both a chance to catch their breath as he laughed. "I almost had you that time."

Kess' eyes were fiery with excitement. Bits of leaves littered her braids and her coveralls were smudged with mud, but Luke was no cleaner than she was. Sweat darkened his shaggy hair and black pants were just as smudged. He shed his shirt down to his tank top a long time ago.

She fought to keep from tripping over the vines as she shuffled, but no matter where she was, she maintained her white blade hovering defensively in his direction.

With shining eyes locked onto hers, Luke squared off and waited.

She tightened her grip and attacked. After several quick taps, to which he defended easily, she smoothly changed her angle and hit his blade so hard that she knocked both blades into a nearby tree branch. Before he had a chance to recover, she pulled back and swung as if to cut off his head. Luke ducked under it and stomped forward with a big swipe, but she stopped it.

The blades crossed low. Another loud zap echoed through the trees.

The birds chirped away from the canopy and the evening sun glowed down on their faces in a background of deep green. Luke panted through his open smile, watching her wild eyes. Kess shined right back at him, secretly enjoying this unusual playfulness in him for as long as it was going to last.

Kess pulled her blade from the low cross and swung, but he met it again at a high cross.

She gritted her teeth at the first hint of frustration, yet Luke watched her with as much guard and focus as she watched him.

"I can't win against you," she panted. "You're bigger and stronger."

Luke flare a dark smile. "You've got weapons of your own," he assured.

"Weapons?" Kess echoed with a curl of her eyebrow.

Luke blinked and flushed a smile. He shrugged a hand from his hilt to reiterate politely, "attributes."

" _Attributes?_ " She echoed even brighter, laughing now, just to tease his choice of words. "And what would those be?"

Luke shook his head and scolded her with his eyes, but his smile spread wider across his face. "You know that's not what I meant."

Kess knew that's not what he meant, but leveled a strong gaze on him anyway. "I didn't say what I thought you meant."

Luke shoved a guilty tongue into his molar.

 _Busted_.

Even though she couldn't see it in the cool clarity of his eyes, she sensed the blade of blood red passion spike out from him on the Force. He didn't shy away from the truth of it, but he said nothing more to feed the distraction either.

Kess had no intentions of using her sex as a weapon in any fashion, not even to win a dud lightsaber duel, but his momentary stumble about it occurring simultaneously with her momentary strength about it opened the door of humanity just enough for Kess to see a clear peak.

_So there is a man under there after all._

Now charged up with an extra volt of glee, Kess pulled away from the cross and came back at him with vigor. Luke defended two swift blows and jumped to back up, but caught his foot in the vines. Kess took the advantage when his balance wavered. Her blade came down and hit him directly on the back of his right hand.

Luke grunted as he tumbled to the ground. His face twisted with more pain than it should have. He turned off his blade with his left hand and tossed the hilt aside. He sat up in the vine-covered ground with his right arm huddled close to his stomach as if lame.

Her eyes flashed wide in shock of his reaction. She turned off her blade and ran to his aid. "What happened?"

Luke breathed through hard teeth. "Well, the dud blades don't hurt _flesh_." He brought out his right hand out to review the damage. "But I keep forgetting that this isn't flesh."

Kess fell to her knees by his side and saw the blow had charred a patch of synth-flesh on the back of his hand. The tiny split revealed a hint of cyborg electronics inside. She perked up with surprise, "You're part droid!"

Luke glanced wryly at her before focusing on his wound. "Yes. And now I'm part broken droid."

Kess leaned over his knee and took his hand, studying it like any other broken electronics she ran across. "The frequency from the blade could have confused the servos and overloaded them."

Luke looked at her sarcastically. "You're a cybernetic doctor, too?"

Kess glanced up, "Er, no." She let go of him and backed up to sit on her feet.

Luke pulled in his hand and looked it over. The damage wasn't bad. He turned up his wrist to thumb around for the hidden switch and turned off the pain receptors.

"What happened to your real one?"

Luke focused to squint at the switch. "It was cut off by—" his eyes flicked up, "Vader… Vader cut it off."

Kess shifted to get comfortable, realizing lightsaber training was over for the day. She unraveled her hair into two, long pigtails, and unraveled those so she comb away bits of leaves and twigs from her hair.

She wanted to ask about Vader again, but she wasn't going to spoil this awesome afternoon with poking at his long stories that would just piss him off. "Are you gonna be okay?"

Luke nodded and dropped his hands to his lap. "I'll go to medbay when we get back." He looked to her and smiled big. "That was fun."

Teasing, Kess shook her index finger at him. "It wasn't supposed to be fun."

Luke shrugged, "I know."

Kess basked in his smile until he yanked his eyes away again. She watched him close his eyes until his eyelids wrinkled, scolding himself with a brief meditation for just having fun.

The very idea of that made her heart shrivel a little. Kess angled her chin. "Can I ask you a question?"

Luke blinked his eyes back open and grinned about it, "Is it about Vader?"

Kess laughed softly, "No."

Blue eyes beamed. "All right, ask."

"Are we really not supposed to have any fun at all?" She shook her head at him, struggling with the mere idea of that. " _Ever_?"

Luke looked at his lap somberly, but lifted his eyes again to admit, "I don't know."

Kess slumped like a teenager.

"I'm telling the truth, Kess." Luke almost grinned about it. "Don't underestimate how much _I really don't know_."

"Yeah, but—" She cut herself off and exhaled a rush of sadness.

Luke's smile vanished. "What?"

She faked a smile and gathered both dud saber hilts to go. "Nothing."

He urged gently, "Come on. What?"

" _Nothing_ ," she insisted, climbing to her feet.

His voice was one of support, "You know better—

In a flash of anger, Kess spun back and snapped at him. "Luke, sometimes you just have to take a lie as another way of saying, 'I don't want to talk about it with you!'"

"All right," Luke nodded at his lap, then angled up his head to dare, "but who else are you going to talk about it with?"

Her heart shrank. Kess blew up at her bangs and looked up to see the sky fading into dusk. "Nobody," she admitted in a dead whisper. "Not a blasted soul."

Luke pulled his knees up and wrapped his elbows around them. "Let me guess. The news is out that you're a Jedi Apprentice and, one by one, people are giving you more room to walk."

Kess chuckled wryly, "And I wondered why you didn't have a girl."

Luke grinned at the ground. "So tell me what happened."

She put her hands on her hips, "Look, I'm not interested in anyone, so it doesn't matter right now, but I feel like the option of getting married and having children someday is totally out of the question now."

He pushed himself off the ground. "It's not out of the question—

"Oh really?" She spun around. "Have you looked at your own sex life for the past eight years?"

Luke straightened his shoulders.

"And don't give me any of that 'my sex life is none of your business' crap either." She stomped forward with an aggressive point at his chest, "Because if _my_ sex life is _your_ business, buddy, then your sex life is fair game." She shrugged her hands at him, "Or lack thereof, anyway."

Luke snapped his mouth shut at the sudden clarity of what this was all about.

She continued to chew him out without fear. "You are my Jedi Master and you are my Commanding Officer, but you are _not_ my damned father and you have no right to grant or deny Wedge permission to ask me out on a stupid date!"

Luke forced himself to remain calm. "When I told you to use the Force on duty I didn't mean for you to peek into my private conversations."

She frowned and nodded, "Yeah, okay. I'll stop." Her fists clenched and her attitude thickened, "In about a year." She turned her back to him, frustrated, insulted and degraded.

Luke closed his eyes in a silent curse and opened them up again to see her back.

Her arms knotted across her chest.

Determined, he stepped to her side. His voice was quiet and firm. "First of all, Kesselia, you know why I watched you and you know I have stopped; and you watched me on the vid for eight years, so don't wave that at me as your victim-earned right to peek in on my private life (or lack thereof)."

She glared at him, "Actually, I heard it through the grapevine, like _human_ people do."

Luke decided to leave that one alone and continued. "Secondly, the general public is still trying to get used to having Jedi around. Until that happens, the only ones who are going to be close to you are the friends you already have. The only new ones are going to be the friends _I_ already _had_. Everyone else is going to give you a wide berth and you are going to feel lonelier that you've ever felt in your life."

She faced him with clenched teeth, "Yeah, but—"

" _Let me finish_ ," he snapped. "I will tell Wedge and (any other interested party) that your social life is none of my business as soon as I am convinced you won't take a joyride with a relationship and turn to the dark side on me when some arrogant scum hurts you."

Kess' chin crunched back. "You're saying Wedge is some arrogant scum?"

His voice was bordering impatience. "That is _not_ what I said. Wedge is a perfect gentleman when he wants to be, but he is not the subject matter here and you know it. He just happened to be the first one that asked me."

Kess shifted her eyes away.

"Now, as a Jedi Apprentice you are doing very well, but you still fly off the handle at some pretty insignificant stuff, _like this_ , and if you don't control it you are _going_ to turn to the dark side."

Her gaze dropped to her feet with a tinge of worry in her brow. "I don't use the Force when I'm upset."

He leaned his face to her and whispered, "All it takes is once."

Her voice was nervous and angry. "So I'm grounded? Is this payback for putting the chocks on Rogue Five? If I let you fly will you let me date?"

"That's not what I meant and you know it." Weary, Luke turned away to head back.

Her voice was cold. "It doesn't matter what you meant as long as I'm not having any more sex than you are, right? Are you going to slap a chastity belt on me too?"

Luke spun back with a hard pointing finger at, "That's _exactly_ what I'm talking about, Kess! You're angry and you're frustrated and you can't control it."

She waved her open hands at him as she followed. "You can't tell me that you've been able to stay at peace _all_ day _every_ day for the last eight years! You may be a Jedi, but you're still human!" She spread her hands, suddenly unsure about that. " _Right?_ "

"I haven't," he stopped her, "but I control it." He insisted. "I put it aside until I can go somewhere and get it out. You noticed this clearing is worn in and it's true. I come here, away from people, and away from problems just so I can _be_ angry and _be_ upset and _be_ depressed. But if someone shows up, or the commlink goes off, or anything happens that requires my attention to the real world, I turn it off like a power switch." He snapped his fingers in the air.

Kess wasn't trying to block or hide the sadness swelling out of her soul at all this.

Luke shrugged his hands to his sides. "You'll learn to do it too. Once you've mastered that, the rest is easy."

Kess quieted respectfully. "So what do you do now that I'm in the clearing too?"

Luke laughed weakly, trying to make light of it all. "I'll just vent my aggressions out on you." He turned away to walk back to the clearing.

Her mouth twisted with a thought as she followed. _What if it's not aggression you need to vent?_

She followed him through the trees back to the clearing and raised her voice, "Back to the subject of Wedge…"

 


	22. LL2 22 Ben's Bad Timing

** LL2       22         Ben's Bad Timing **

"Ah, Wedge," Luke grumbled, smiling tightly. He ducked under a low branch and strutted at a full strut towards the fallen log. After Wedge had asked, Luke had secretly sensed out when the two of them were in the managers' office. Wedge was no more interested in Kess than Kess was in Wedge. His request was truly just shipmates helping shipmates. Luke couldn't figure out why she would be this upset about it. "Is this really about Wedge or is it just about dating in general?"

Kess watched his back and could sense the small knot in his stomach. "You don't trust him."

Luke didn't look at her. He distracted his sights by putting his dud lightsaber hilt away. "Not true. I trust him with my life." He turned to face her with it. "But I don't trust _anybody_ with you. Not yet. Not until you can control your temper."

Kess slumped to sit on the fallen log. "So I _am_ grounded." Her voice went distant with a deep sigh. "By the time this is all over, I'll be so different nobody's going to want to have lunch with me."

Luke's movements slowed. He watched her out of the corner of his eye. He pursed his lips in thought. **_I'll_** _have lunch with you._ But he didn't say it. He sighed and sat down on the log next to her trying to figure out how to console this.

He noticed Wedge failed to ask again after the specified couple of weeks, probably because the intended party he was urged to take her to had come and gone, but Luke took it as grounds to procrastinate this conversation even further. _So much for that idea._ Luke resigned to getting it over with. He sighed big and deep through an open mouth.

After some thought to figure out how to start, he spoke, "Love is a complex enough emotion as it is. When you add the Force as an element, it just gets more complicated."

Kess teased, "Words of experience?"

He shrugged. "I admit don't have a lot to tell you about the subject, but I think I'd better tell what I do know before you –um..." His eye flicked timidly at her.

A glint sparked in her eye. She tucked her head over, "Um _what_?"

Luke set his elbows on his knees and smiled caustically at the jungle. "Why did I have to get stuck figuring out Jedi Mating Rituals with one of the few species that uses emotion to procreate?"

They both laughed softly, trying to shrug away the sudden nerves in them both.

Kess gave him a friendly heckle. "Look on the bright side, Luke. This'll break the ground so you'll be less nervous when you have to explain it to your kids."

He rubbed his face with both palms and let his fingers stop to cover his mouth. "That's supposed to be the bright side?"

With nearly a metre of space between them, they sat on the log and stared at the same wall of bushes. Kess eyed over at him once more. She warmed to watch him trying to find words, find guts, find wisdom…

She stood and patted his shoulder as she passed him to the water bottles. "Y'know what? Don't worry about it."

His eyes turned up. She sucked down a big swig and offered the bottle to him.

"Don't worry about it?" He echoed. He took the bottle but was too distracted to drink it.

She shrugged, going back to her spot on the log. "I'm not going to be interested in anyone new before my training is over anyway. It's not like I've got the time for it. It's okay to skip this lesson if you want." She dropped her gaze to her feet, locking her elbows at her sides.

Luke angled his head to unravel this puzzle as he tossed down the water bottle. He swung his leg over the log to face her off with a loud whine, "If you don't have any plans to date until your training is over, then why do keep complaining about it?"

Kess stiffened.

Luke didn't notice what he said until he saw her ankles crossing apprehensively in front of her. He looked at the side of her struggling face and a smile spread across his mouth when he realized the truth of it. Now, he had her blushing. "Three, two."

Kess gritted her teeth and served. "That's not fair."

"What's not fair?" He bounced back.

She wriggled her fingers in the air at him. "You have all these rules and regs about what I can talk about when, and what I can't talk about at all! I'm biting my tongue half the time! I am _not_ speechless!"

He started, but when he felt the butterflies in her stomach, his lips parted into a grin. "Fine." He piped. "We'll take it off the record."

Brown eyes shot to him, "What do you mean?"

Luke wondered what the hell he was doing, and decided they could afford to have one completely honest conversation. Blue eyes brightened. "Off the record," he said it matter-of-factly as he pulled his lightsaber off his belt. He tossed it onto the bag at his feet.

Kess watched it go, guarded.

Luke shrugged his hands in the air, bright and plain. "You can say anything you want."

Kess watched his eyes, wary.

His grin grew into a crooked smile as he reached over and pulled her lightsaber off her belt as well. He flopped in the air to slap against his palm, then threw it down on the bag next to his own.

Kess watched her hilt land on the duffel next to his. Her eyes returned to him, skeptical.

"No military ranks. No Jedi ranks." Now empty of both, he faced her down, straddling the log, and shrugged his hands again. "Just Luke and Kess." Their names echoed in the back of his head.

She eyed him with warning, untrusting whatever he was up to.

"So tell me," he crossed his arms hard at his chest with wily eyes on her, "Why do you keep complaining about it?"

"No." She wrapped one leg over the log and straddled it to face him down, just as aggressive. "You don't get to do this."

"Do what?" He started to smile again.

She pointed and accusing finger at him, "Take this off the record just to make me admit to things you already know."

A warm tingle swelled inside Luke's chest. His leg jiggled against the ground. His stare narrowed with heat. "Why not?"

Kess huffed through her nose as if she was impatient with him. She had to think long and hard for a good response. "Because you won't admit anything to me."

Luke's hot eyes and curling mouth only intensified. He straightened his posture and, verbally, batted it right back at her. "Fine. What do you want me to admit?"

Kess caught her breath. Her jaw went crooked to try to be angry, but that didn't work. She caught a whiff of his shining Force print and stopped. She tried to exhale away the new warmth glowing from her stomach, but that didn't work either.

Now Luke was flirting with _her_.

He saw her eyes change. She began to retreat with distrust. He felt her flustered nerves and her fuzzy heart. He watched her cheeks blush and her tongue lick her lips wet in the mental struggle. In the clearing of the jungle, twenty kilometres from base, no one would see, no one would know, no one would _care_ …

She leaned her weight onto her palms, locking her elbows. She eyed him to accuse, "I want you to admit this is just another one of your damn tests."

His smile vanished. Locked in her eyes, he barely shook his head. "This isn't a test."

Disappointed and disbelieving, Kess backed away from him.

Desperately, Luke scooted forward on the log and leaned his weight on his hands. "If you had a reason to wait until your training was over…" he hesitated at what he was about to say, and then just breathed it, "would you?"

Her eyebrow lifted. She took two full breaths through an open mouth and almost smiled, "Yeah, I would."

Luke caught his breath. _Now what?_ He licked his teeth. He wondered if he shouldn't. Then he wondered if it mattered. Then he wondered what she tasted like.

She gave him a sad grin. "But you're not going to give me a reason. Are you?"

Luke gulped. No one _told_ him he couldn't kiss her before her training was over.

She looked at nothing on the space of the log between them and braid kinked hair fell sadly over her shoulder. Her voice was a whisper of completely _expected_ disappointment. "With all due respect, Luke, if you want the off-the-record kind of truth, you're gonna have to give me a reason to give it to you."

She searched his expression and just, plain, fruitlessly, _wished_.

And since Kess already knew what that would get her, she began to back up with a sigh of resignation—

Luke's found his mouth chasing her lips before she got away. He spread his palms on the log so he could lean over his own hands and— bonked his nose against hers.

Kess blinked with surprise. Her mouth hung agape in shock.

Luke stared back, just as surprised that he tried, just as shy that he fumbled, and realized his mouth still hovered only an inch from her lips anyway.

Her eyelids drooped. She timidly touched her nose to his again with invitation and hope.

Before logic took over, before he let himself change his mind about it, Luke closed the last bit of distance and kissed her.

Her chest heaved with a quiet air as their lips folded together. She trembled to his touch. Her reaction addicted him. He paused only to scoot closer and opened his mouth onto her some more. Her tongue tasted like spring water. Her mouth was warm velvet.

The shy little kiss drifted away until lips fell apart. Forehead to forehead, stunned and barely breathing, she began to drift away…

Instinct flared. He took her face with his good hand and drew her back to him so he could kiss her again. It was gentle. It was frightening. It was _agonizing_. The decadence of it poisoned his senses and all his self-discipline came crashing down with a sonic boom.

The kiss grew feral and deep and yet somehow still sizzled with terror and contrition. Next thing he knew, her arms were around his shoulders. Her body pressed against him. He wrapped one arm around her waist and reached the other up her back, sliding his fingers to comb up into the hair at the back of her neck. He was acutely aware how the woman strapped herself across his lap like a seatbelt, and Luke found himself devouring her mouth like he was starving to death.

Out here, in the clearing, no one would know.

Hands slid down her sides to hold her hips in place and Luke began to roll her onto her back…

"Luke," Obi-Wan scolded. "Stop."

Luke recognized the voice immediately. It plucked the passion from Luke's throat like a weed.

He pressed his eyes closed against her face with regret, with guilt, with _lust_ , and chomped his jaw shut. _This isn't fair._ The intoxicated tingle in his stomach was gutted only to leave a dark, gaping hole in its place. It felt like Uncle Owen had just walked in on him and a girl in the parlor dome. He rubbed his lips but couldn’t bring himself to pull his face from hers.

"Ben," Luke bitched, "Your timing is awful."

"On the contrary, my boy," Obi-Wan grunted deeply. "It looks like my timing couldn't be better."

Kess unraveled her body from Luke's arms to stare at the glowing ghost of a Jedi standing in the clearing, and who could blame her? Luke exhaled a big breath as he arched his back, still suffering from _stopping_ , and rolled his eyes over with a waving arm of introductions—

"You son of a _bantha_!" Kess hissed.

Luke's eyes popped out of their sockets.

Obi-Wan's icy eyes shifted to glare a sharp new glare at _her_.

Kess marched up to the ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi with unbridled hostility like she was going to kill him again. " _You do_ have awful timing!" She pointed roughly at him with anger seething from her teeth. "If you wanted to be a part of my life, you should have never left it in the first place!"

Luke's jaw fell to the ground.

"Luke," Obi-Wan hissed, barely shifting his eyes back to the boy. "This was _not_ what I had in mind." Obi-Wan's old eyes were irritated to a sharpness unlike anything Luke saw in the man's eyes before.

Luke closed his mouth with shame. He looked at his Master with full responsibility, overwhelming guilt, and complete understanding. He nodded with humility.

Obi-Wan began to fade.

Kess stomped forward, "Don't you blink out on me now! I've got a bone to pick with you!"

Obi-Wan's image brightened just enough to snip back at her, "No, Kesselia, you have a bone to pick with _your_ _father_." With that, he blinked away to nothing.

Kess screamed at the empty space and kicked at nothing, "You bastard!"

As the echo of her scream faded, the sound of the crickets and night birds chirped through the foliage in its place. Luke's eyes fell on Kess' back as the pieces started falling together. The only people who called her 'Kesselia' was her _family_.

Luke blinked deep and slow. "Kesselia _Kenobi_ Lendra?"

Kess dug her fingers into her bangs. "What's your point? I told you he was a nobody! The bishwag takes off without explanation and _now_ he decides to come glowing back into my life?" She turned away to fret, hands on her hips as she paced in the clearing.

Luke closed his eyes and opened his mouth, trying not to cuss out Obi-Wan right along with her.

 _'Her name is Kesselia Lendra,'_ Obi-Wan's voice had whispered as the scene focused on the young repair engineer. _'Be careful with her.'_

Luke covered his face with his hands and moaned, "Why didn't you tell me?"

Kess spun around to him, still frustrated. "There was nothing more to tell you! I'm still not even sure he _was_ a Jedi. He certainly never admitted it to any of _us_. That man abandoned my grandmother in her darkest moment and he _never came back_!"

Luke closed his eyes in his hands.

 _I haven't gone by the name of Obi-Wan since, oh, before you were born_. He changed his name from Obi-Wan to Ben when he went into hiding and, to stay safely in hiding, his new family had to believe he nobody special. They didn't understand when--

 _Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope._              

 _You must learn the ways of the Force if you're to come with me to Alderaan._                      

 _Then Mom went on holiday to Alderaan… And Vader was so damn smug about it on the news reports!_         

The family hated the Jedi for it. They must have lied to her.

Kess paced across the clearing, ignoring Luke's silence. "He died years ago," she complained, "What the hell is he doing showing up now?"

Luke looked up at her and realized that Kess had absolutely no idea who her grandfather really was. He was a General, a Jedi Knight, and a hero of the Clone Wars. _How could her family not know?_

"It's bad enough I'm training with you." Kess smiled angrily at the sky, "My father's going to have a bantha when he finds out Grandpa's _not actually gone_."

Luke dug his fingers into his bangs, sighing again to watch her. The wife and children hated the Jedi for it...        

 _They lied to her._            

"He's right," Luke smiled nauseously. "You _do_ have a bone to pick with your father."

 


	23. LL2 23 It was a Mistake

** LL2       23        It was a Mistake **

Kess rounded the tenth loop around the grinder and trotted to a stop, wiping beads of sweat from her temples. She panted, "You know, I think you just want me to run in the morning so you won't have to do it by yourself."

Luke stretched his arms as he walked to slow his pulse. He turned away so she wouldn't see him smile, but she could hear it in his voice. "You really don't expect me to admit that, do you?"

Kess smiled briefly and sat down on the bleachers. She took a long slow sip from the giant plastic cup and looked up. The gears in her head were turning as she drilled her eyes into him. "One of these days, I'm going to figure out how to ask you a question that will get me and answer every time."

Luke strolled around on the gravel in front of her, "I always give you an answer. I just don't give you the answers you want to hear."

She violently threw the towel at him.

He giggled and caught it, stepping forward for the cup, "So what's your question?"

"Why should I bother?" She scoffed with premature disappointment.

Luke shrugged back and gulped down the water.

Kess rubbed her chin deep in thought, "Maybe I could get your sister to tell me…"

"You leave Leia out of this! Just spill it." He took a big swig and set the cup on the bench beside her.

She watched him and monitored for any change as she spoke. "How do you know my grandfather?"

His eyes and emotions both skewed toward nervous. He blinked and wiped his sweaty neck with the towel. "Um _..._ "

She could hear it in his tone and finished for him. "It's kind of a long story." Kess sneered, getting very aggravated about it. "You have so many blasted long stories, you must be a lot older than I thought."

Luke hid his expression with the towel and spoke into it as he wiped his face. "Actually, it's all the _same_ long story," his voice was muffled.

Kess' chin rocked back and forth in attitude, "We are gonna have a nice long talk when this training is over, _buddy_."

Luke sat down on the bleachers next to her, muttering, "I was planning on it."

Her eye stretched sheepishly to him, glad to hear that but afraid to acknowledge it.

He quickly tossed the towel to the side and huffed. "Luckily, you won't have to wait that long. I've been able to deduce that half the story is going to have to come from your father."

She stared darkly at nothing, "You're really are gonna make me tell him, aren't you?"

He lowered his gaze and nodded. "I have to. As soon as this overhaul is over—

Kess slapped her knees and shot up from the bench. "You have no idea what you're saying!"

"No," he agreed quietly, "but I can imagine." His brows flicked. "Believe me."

Kess stretched her neck back and looked up at the sky. Her father was not going to take this lightly. She wondered if she could convince Luke to let her just tell her father over the comm so she could hang up when the man went ballistic about it.

Suddenly, she winced right out of her fretting, "Wait a minute!" She spun around to face him. "If half the story comes from my father, and the other half comes from you, then the stories are related."

Sparkling eyes peeked up. "You are quite a detective. Are you sure engineering is your true calling?"

Her eyebrows knitted hard until they were one. She flopped an index finger back and forth between them. " _We're_ not related, are we?"

Luke's Adam's apple bounced as he swallowed. His eyes looked up at the sky above her and said, very loudly, " _Not that I know of!_ "

Kess' forehead wrinkled.

Luke's eyes fell on her again. "You'll be fine. I won't go to your father's house with you, but I will go to Tatooine." He stood up wearily, picking up the towel and the cup to get ready to leave. "But you have to face him, Kess."

Her smile changed as she looked up into his eyes. Hope curled her voice. "Is this gonna be my final exam?"

He pressed his lips together in thought, "Kind of a midterm."

"I guess I'd better study then." Her eyes twinkled.

Luke grinned shyly at his feet and looked up at her again as he swung the towel over his shoulder. "Guess so."

"May I ask a question," she specified softly, " _off_ the record?"

Luke dropped his gaze again, gathered his resolve, and brought his eyes back up to face this down as firmly as he could manage. "No."

Her jaw visibly hardened. Brown eyes darted away.

"Hey," he said quickly, but when she looked at him again, his eyes hardened too, "You need to forget it. It was a mistake."

She started to shake her head at that.

Luke lowered his eyes to admit. "It was _my_ mistake."

Kess chomped her jaw and looked away. Her usually bright Force Print sucked into a tiny dark spot.

Luke lowered his voice to point it out. "We _both_ got a little training yesterday."

Kess swooped her head the other way to avoid looking at him without turning away from him. A garbled mess of emotion caught in her throat and she huffed it all out again, hurt.

"Tell you what," he said at the ground, "take the weekend to meditate, or partr, or…" he blinked hard, his eyes almost watering, "w-whatever you have to." Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her eyes glancing up to see if he meant it and Luke just gritted his teeth at the gravel. "Hit the reset button." He murmured. "Reboot." _Meditating being the preferred option here, but I'm not going to be a hypocrite._ "You had your lesson." He grinned wryly at the ground. "So did I."

Her brows angled over her eyes. She chewed hard on her lower lip as if trying to create a distracting volume of physical pain to mask the emotional pain.

"We'll resume training Primeday morning." He brought up his face with a big breath, rolled his shoulders back and turned to go away. "See you at muster."

She never said anything, but she didn't have to. She wasn't trying to block the wound in her soul. Luke stared ahead at the barracks and the jungle and the bleachers and the sidewalk and yet he didn't see any of it. His focus was on the big chocolate splotch on the Force behind him. Luke pretended he didn't notice it. He didn't slow his stride to do something about it. He just stared at his destination and _marched_ , sensing clearly when she flopped to sit down onto the bench and cried.

* * *

The lights in Luke's apartment were out except for one medium light near the dining table. Luke leaned his cheek heavily on his fist and pushed away what was left of his dinner plate. Then he pulled forward a black datapad with rounded character keys and switched it on. He drummed his fingers on the table for a second and started typing.

**Entry # 145:**

**I understand now why Obi-Wan told me to be careful with her. I just wish he had told me from the start that Kess was his granddaughter. Now that I think about it, I'm not sure if it would have made it better or worse. I can't help but think that since Obi-Wan failed in the training my father, it would only be poetic justice for me to fail to train Kess.**      

**I realize now that I never saw Obi-Wan angry. Not once. At first, I read his interruption as disappointment directed at my momentary loss of control, or my momentary failing as a Master, but the more I think about that look on his face**

His fingers paused. Luke's eyes flicked to the darkened air of his apartment as he remembered back to that snapshot memory of Old Ben… in that moment… when Luke slammed on the throttle and nosedived to conquer… his _granddaughter_ …

_I'm lucky to still be alive, aren't I?_

With his mouth hanging thoughtfully open, he typed it loud and clear.

**I respect Ben.**

**And he knows that.**

Luke took a deep, shaky breath and smiled weakly at himself.

**Right now, it's training. But**

His fingers kicked away the datapad and he said it out loud instead, loud and clear in the empty apartment. "Ben, it won't always be training."

Luke looked up at the ceiling and shook his head. "Don't do that to me again. _Please_." He licked his lower lip, wondering if anyone was listening and decided to say it anyway. "If you don't like then don't let me get that far in the first place! _Ben!_ "

His anger growled that the man wouldn't show on command, that the mentor would leave him swinging so uncontrollably in this uncertainty. He chomped his jaw hard and curled his face into his lap.

After a hard breath, he looked back up at the sky with an order. " _Tell me now_."

"Tell me now. Yes or no. Tell me _long_ before this training is over. Give me the chance to—

He bit his lips closed.

The young Jedi Master was _already_ supposed to be pacifying it like it was never going to happen anyway, whether Obi-Wan approved of it or not. Instead, Luke was just stuffing it all into a corner to make it wait its turn.

Still, humans had customs. And being a Jedi did _not_ outrank them.

If Obi-Wan Kenobi disapproved of Luke pursuing his granddaughter, the old hermit should have said something long before now. He should have said something before Luke took her to the clearing the first time. He should have said something before she had that vision on the beach at Frakkan. He should have said something back when Luke convinced her to train in the beginning.

Obi-Wan should have said something when he led Luke by the nose to discover Kesselia _Kenobi_ Lendra in the first place!

Luke shook his head at the table and scoffed weakly, "You're the one that introduced us. What the hell did you think was going to happen?"

Luke closed his eyes and sighed again. Then, with an indignant flash, he shoved the datapad and his dinner away from him.

With hard palms swiping over his face, he got up from the table and moved to the living room where he could sit in darkness and silence, and meditate it out of him the rest of the night.

* * *

Coruscant was the center of the galaxy for as long as any culture had written history. It had been the office of whatever government was in charge for so many years that the entire planet that once was swamp and desert and ocean was now covered in hundreds of levels of city. Dusk painted the sky in shades of pollution and smoke and the Imperial Palace loomed evilly over it all. Kadaan gazed arrogantly out the window of his chambers deep in thought when Admiral Cheenan marched up behind him and came to attention.

"Master Kadaan, we have received a message from Mugwot Pon." Cheenan proudly announced. "He swears loyalty to the Empire and is eager to execute our suggestion."

Kadaan half turned to Cheenan. "Have we acquired the warheads yet."

"Not yet, Master. The chempods are still being manufactured on X-Simpe. They are due to arrive within the month."

Kadaan nodded and looked back out the window. "Allow Mugwot Pon execute the plan. We'll see if he's as good of a kidnapper as he is a spy."

Cheenan clicked his heels and bowed before he turned to leave.


	24. LL2 24 Kerpow

** LL2       24        Kerpow **

The New Alliance Council met nearly every day, but Luke was absent for ninety percent of them because of pad operations, confidential missions and, now, Jedi training. His presence wasn't required for most of them anyway. As the only Jedi Knight, he didn't have much to represent, and Leia competently spoke on his behalf when he was absent.

But Luke wouldn't miss this meeting for the galaxy. His eyes smiled as he entered the Council Hall.

Representatives of hundreds of intelligent races moved to their places. Beautifully colored robes, skin, and fur brightened the scene of carved walls and electric lighting. Luke spotted a flowing white gown in the distance and strolled smartly over to Leia and Han with a tight grin.

Leia turned to him with a deceitful look in her eye, "Hello, Luke. Have you decided who you are voting for today?" Han walked up behind her, squinting in curiosity at Luke's playful expression.

Luke crossed his arms at his chest and met his sister's stare. "Bribe me."

Han's eyes popped out of his head. He almost coughed, " _Bribe_ you? What the hell happened to you?"

Luke half turned, embarrassed at his own words. "I'm kidding, Han."

Han gave him a cautious eye. "Okay, but that doesn't answer my question."

Luke shrugged, still grinning and rubbed his forehead, "I, uh, I got a real taste of irony the other day." He looked up again to see the look on their faces when he told them. "Kess' grandfather? I found out who it was."

A shadow crossed Leia's face. "If you tell me it's Anakin I'm going to lose it."

Luke laughed so loud his voice echoed against the walls over the crowd. Han and Leia watched him in bewilderment until the man's laughter happily died. He looked at them out of the corner of a twinkling eye, and his tone dropped, "I almost want to say it's worse than that." He licked his lips and squared his shoulders. "Her _full_ name is Kesselia _Kenobi_ Lendra."

Leia gasped, "She's _Obi-Wan's_ granddaughter!"

Luke nodded, "But the ironic part is that she doesn't even know he was with the Rebellion, much less a General or a Jedi Knight. When he went into hiding, his family had to believe he was a nobody."

Han's forehead wrinkled. "But he didn't go into hiding until after all those years as a General, and that stuff was on the mass media."

"True," Luke admitted, "but it was also before we were born. Her parents would remember all that, and it seems that they never bothered to tell her." He shrugged at the foul tasting similarities. "Just like Uncle Owen didn't want me to know who Anakin really was. Apparently there was a family disagreement about Ben's dedication, so her father has been lying to her to keep her from wanting to become a Jedi."

Leia started to look worried. "How did she react when you told her?"

Luke shot out like she was nuts. "I _didn't_ tell her! Her father's been lying to her; her father can tell her the truth. In fact, I'm going to have to take her back to Tatooine to face him about it. Can you afford to lose me for a few weeks?"

"When?"

Luke grinned wryly, "As soon as she's done overhauling my entire flight group."

Leia nodded at the floor, thinking, "We can work something out, but I want you both at the Minister of State reception whether I win this vote or not."

"I'll be there," he stressed. "I can't answer for Kess."

"Luke," Leia pleaded.

Luke threw his hands up in the air. "Hey, I already got in trouble for people trying to clear her social life with me. It's none of my business."

Leia spread her hand. "So invite her as a date."

Luke's eyebrow shot up.

Han shrugged his brows in all seriousness. "It's no use faking it anymore, kid. The NewsNets already came up with their own conclusions."

Luke's lips tightened into seriousness. "She's my apprentice, not my girlfriend. Stop acting like she is." He looked at them both, stepped backwards, and pointed roughly, " _You_ invite her."

He turned away and stomped to his chair at the giant oval table. The deep, soft, tones rang and the New Alliance Council moved to their seats to vote.

* * *

Neilson yelled out to the lounging gang in the muster room for them all to shut up. The fifty members of Rogue Group went silent to listen.

"...the tallies are in. And the next Minister of State is…" the announcer spoke with a pregnant pause, then boomed, " _Leia Organa Solo!..._ "

Faces in the crowd smiled as they shook hands with one another, talking loudly again. Kess' smiled big and returned a hug of victory to Neilson. Wedge shared a high-five with Teak.

In the elaborate Council Hall, the Ambassadors applauded as they stood up.

Han toasted a glass of wine with Madine. Rieekan turned to spread his hands to Ackbar, sharing a laugh. "We're never gonna retire, are we?"

Luke gave his sister a hug and whispered something into her ear.

Mon Mothma split the crowd and touched Luke's shoulder to get out of her way. Formally but genuinely, the Chief Commander stepped up to shake hands of congratulations to _Minister_ Leia Organa Solo.

* * *

Luke took off his jacket and tossed it on the fallen log, then rolled up his sleeves, "You ever play tag as a kid?"

Her eyebrow shot up. He was bouncing on his knees again. She saw the dud saber in his hand and, blindly, Force Pulled the other one into her own fist before it was too late.

He ignited the white blade as soon as she had it. "I'll give you a ten-second head start. One... two ... three…"

Kess stumbled backwards and turned, igniting her dud saber and running full speed into the jungle. He waited to ten, but caught up with her in a matter of seconds. The sting of the blade brushed her hip and she spun around to him with a growl.

Luke was already trotting backwards into the dew-dripping woods. "You're it." He turned around and ran, dodging trees and leaping over shrubbery.

Kess fought a grin and cussed under her breath, "You little—

She bolted after him.

* * *

Commander Skywalker noticed that when the pilots stood around, twiddling their thumbs, they just got in the way. They were all bored with maneuver review in the muster room, so he sent them all home. "But keep your commlinks close. Report every morning for muster, and I'll just keep sending you home until we have something to do."

As the pilots shuffled off the pad, Kess stepped up behind him and flicked her middle finger against the back of his elbow. "You know, you can go home, too."

Luke stepped around a desk on the side of the pad and flopped into a Deck Sup's chair. Neilson was talking with Ashten, and Rogan was talking with Seidrik. Luke crossed his boots at the ankles, leaned back in the chair to show that he wasn't going anywhere, and raised a brow at her with tested patience.

Kess stood over him with her weight shifted onto one boot. "If you think we work faster just because you're sitting here staring at us, you are gravely mistaken."

Neilson stretched his eye over his shoulder at the exchange, but he didn't care anymore.

Kess waved her hand in the air at Luke. "Go home."

Luke's demeanor shattered with a snort and a snicker.

Kess met a glance with Ashten. "It's not working."

Ashten grinned strangely. "What are you doing?"

Kess waved her hand at Luke's face again. " _Go home_."

Luke threw his head back with laughter. She was hardly trying, but that's what made it charming.

Kess shrugged it off and turned to Ashten with a quip. "Apparently nothing—

 ** _KerPOW!_**          

The small explosion sounded huge the way it echoed against the stone walls. All eyes went toward the noise. Flames shot horizontally from the back of Rogue Twelve and bodies stumbled away. All at once, all personnel ran towards the craft, grabbing fire extinguishers and shouting out orders. Froda shut down power immediately and jumped frantically out of the cockpit to the deck.

From four different directions, sticky white foam showered at the fuselage and snuffed the fire almost immediately. Deep sighs preceded questions of concern to make sure everyone was okay, which preceded cussing and curiosity as to what went wrong.

Luke put his hand on his hips and sighed with concern at the large portion of the X-wing that was charred black and covered with the sticky snow. He stayed back from the rest of the crowd and held his breath with concern for her reaction.

Kess and Froda stepped up to the thruster, peering upward into the mechanism.

"What did you just do?" Her voice was tense.

Froda pleaded innocently, "I just re-installed the dampers and was doing the diagnostics."

They could barely make out the fried dampers in the mess, but whatever went wrong, Kess could see it.

Luke could feel her blood beginning to boil.

Kess closed her eyes and her fists balled up into her eyes. One careless and obvious mistake just cost Rogue Group thousands of credits and another week on the ground.

Luke backed up to watch her and bit his lips shut.

Kess sucked in a sigh and turned to Froda. Her voice was quiet and growing more helplessly disappointed by the second. "The dampers are backwards. The reversed polarity—

She caught her breath in her throat.

Neilson stepped up to grimace at the whole thing. "Are you _kidding_ me?"

Neilson, Ashten, and Seidrik were deep into the thruster to start wiping off foam to assess the mess.

Froda turned to Kess with big eyes, too scared for verbal apologies. She turned to him with her fingers over her own smashed mouth. The kid grimaced hard at her as if he knew his head was about to get chopped off and fully felt he deserved it too.

Luke angled his chin, watching with secret warning, and waited.

Kess exploded by clawing at the air in front of Froda's face and growled fast and cute at the exasperating kid. Froda whispered fast and penitent. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."

She stopped him with her palms then shouted at the others to get off the bird. "No. You guys get down. _He's_ cleaning it up!"

Neilson stepped back, whipping soot-smeared white crap from his hand and agreed with a nod.

Kess grabbed Froda's elbow and marched him over. "Wait until it cools and clean it off."

Neilson stepped back with her. Ashten hopped off the wing. Kess angled her head at it again. "It looks worse than it is. It probably just fried the one damper."

"I am so sorry."

Kess hitched a weak, incredulous grin at Froda. Then she grinned with louder and deeper and playful scolding, "Apologize to the bird! Get on your knees and beg Rogue Twelve's forgiveness!"

Ashten chuckled at the order and Neilson laughed as Froda started lowering to his knees on the deck. He flattened his face and arms on the duracrete toward the X-wing like it was a deity. "I'm not worthy!"

Luke turned away, grinning, and slipped into the managers' office alone before anyone remembered to check for his reaction too. Just as he disappeared around the corner, he peeked back.

Kess had already turned her attention to three R2 units rolling curiously out to see what happened. Like a mother with children, she started shooing them back into the droid locker so they would stay out from under foot.

Luke let himself smile at her back.


	25. LL2 25 Busy Mash Pit

** LL2       25        Busy Mash Pit **

Dusk fell gently over the tiny downtown in South Base. Yana drove her speeder into the little city while calling out to her boisterous passengers, "The reason they broke up was because she walked in on him making out with Chief Dresden."

Kayla scooted forward in the back seat. "Can't be. I thought Dresden was a Tigrian? Human's can't mate with Tigrians, can they?"

Joanne turned around in the front seat. "Dresden isn't a Tigrian. Tigrians all have purple skin and long faces."

Yana shook her head as she drove. "Tigrians don't have purple skin."

"Yes, they do," Joanne argued. "That's their number one identifier. Their skin is that lavender color."

Kayla turned to Kess in the back seat. Her chin was propped in her hand, starting deep in thought out the window. "Hey Kess, do Tigrians have purple skin?"

Kess seemed bored with the high-energy gossip she that she once thrived upon. She answered in a mumble, "Yes, they do."

Joanne pointed a finger at Kayla, "See?"

The bantering went on as Yana parked the speeder and shut down the power. The conversation drifted from Tigrians back to Chief Dresden, and then on to other tidbits of grapevine news as the girlies strutted their way around the corner. Kess followed behind with her hands in her pockets and her mind barely paying attention to the conversation. As Kayla held open the door for all of them, she looked inside with surprise.

The Mash Pit was _packed_. "Is it payday? Why didn't I get paid too?" Yana blurted as she stepped in.

Kess and Joanne reviewed the full tables. Kayla stepped up behind them, "Is there a cruiser fleet in port or something?" The girls waited near the door with a half a dozen other bodies already waiting for a table. Yana quietly put them on the same waiting list.

A small crowd of middle-aged men brushed past the girls as they were filtering toward the door. "Hello, Lieutenant."

Kess blinked and looked up to the man, not recognizing him.

"Good evening, Lieutenant." One of his buddies said behind him.

"Hello," Kess responded, confused. She watched them leave, and watched others of their party smiling at her as they left. Kess racked her brain for any memory of them.

Joanne leaned to Kess' ear. "Do you know them?"

Kess shook her head. "Um. No."

"Baby!" Kayla squealed and threw her arms around a man who stepped out of the crowd. Rett D'monck's hands went to her waist and his mouth lowered to give her a big smooch.

Kess grinned to see them happy.

Rett pulled away. "Hello there." He shined his lady-killer smile at them all. "Come, sit with us."

In silent agreement, Yana took their names off the waiting list and the girls bumped their way through the crowded restaurant. The table was large enough to seat all of them. A plate of a half-eaten food and wads of used napkins littered the tabletop, but his original party was only him and a friend, Drake.

As the girlies sat, Drake leaned to greet Kess first, "Hello, Lieutenant."

Kess paused with a perplexed smile to the man, shaking the hand that was offered. "Hi." She watched him greet the rest of the girlies as she settled in.

Meanwhile, Rett punched the holo-waiter button. "Four more ales over here! On the double!"

Kayla smiled with a crinkled nose at her boyfriend. "What brings you boys to the Mash Pit tonight?"

Rett smiled back at her, eye to eye. "I knew I'd see you."

Kess sensed the overflowing arrogance and predator's deceit from Rett and smiled at her lap. Maybe, with Rett to distract her, Kayla won't drag Kess out to pick up men tonight. Someone decided to order another patzia for the women and the talk turned into an argument of what toppings they wanted.

"I'm curious," Drake asked Kess, "Do we call you 'Lieutenant' still, or is it 'Jedi Lendra' now?"

"Just," she shrugged her fingers, "call me 'Kess'." She focused on him. "Have we met before?"

Drake shook his head. "No. I'd remember. I've seen you on the NewsNets though. It's nice to finally meet you."

Kess' brows knitted. "But I didn't do any interviews. What do they have of me to put on the vid?"

Joanne plucked a nibble off the old plate. "Most are pictures of you at the Minister Dell Andre's retirement thing."

Yana shrugged. "They got some of you guys running around the grinder."

Kayla added, "And that photocap of you guys outside the Biscuit Baron. Ha. They tried to play that off as a date."

Joanne blurted, "At a fast food joint? Geez, even the adorkable Skywalker isn't _that_ bad of a nerfnut." Joanne's eyes flicked to Kess. "Is he?"

Kess blinked and bleated. "How the hell would _I_ know?"

They all crooned dubious at that, but it was easy to quiet them down with the truth: even Jedi need eat. And there was nothing on the dark side about being sick of rations and galley slop. The topic drifted onto the new restaurant on the east side of town and Kess gladly let the focus drift away from her.

Then she looked around the busy room full of 'walking balls of emotion' and realized she instinctively slammed it all shut when she was in a crowd. She grew curious as she sipped her beer and peeked open a slice just to see what was around. It was busy, but not that bad. Her eyes looked up to the ceiling, around this room, sensed out to the Ditty Bag store next door, to the children crying in the backseat of a speeder outside, to the weary grocer closing up shop down the block…

As much as she fought for the right to do stuff like this, she didn't want to be here.

She wanted to go to the clearing.

Where she could relax.

With him.

Kess grew weary of blocking it all. The white noise in the restaurant was a higher volume than comfortable and the louder conversation at their table began to grow annoying. Bodies kept brushing passed their table as people went to and from the restrooms, the presence of so many emotions wafted into her Force senses as a big, loud muck. Kess buried her face in her palms for a moment, mentally and physically exhausted.

"Excuse me, Jedi Lendra?"

All eyes moved to find a finely dressed, blue-skinned celebrity standing over their table. "My name is Wubak. I am a reporter for GNN."

"Wubak!" Joanne called out with a smile, recognizing the anchorwoman immediately.

Wubak smiled regally at the rest of the gang and turned to Kess again, "Would you allow me to buy you a drink?"

Kess grinned at the reporter and held up her mug. "I already have one, thanks."

Wubak smiled wider. "Of course. Could I have a moment of your time? The Galaxy has a few questions."

Kess was already shaking her head. "No, thank you. I really shouldn't." Her discomfort showed in her face. Everybody seemed to know her and they wanted to know more about her. This limelight business wasn't as cool as it looked from the other side. Kess missed being faceless.

Wubak sat down at their table anyway. "How is Jedi Training coming along?"

Kess took a large swallow from her ale and leered at the reporter.

The girlies started to sneer at Wubak to leave the poor woman alone.

"How long until you graduate?"

Kess put her palms on the table and pushed to her feet. Wubak's eyes watched her rise, as did everyone else's. Although Kess looked angrily at the woman, she turned her face down to Yana with a murmur. "I'm going home."

The waiter brought the hot patzia to the table. Joanne dug for a piece, whining about the lack of toppings. Someone from deep in the restaurant rushed up to Wubak to as similarly personal question to the reporter. Yana was yelling to Kess not to leave because she hadn't eaten. Kayla was still complaining to Wubak about rights of personal space. The music was loud, and the Force churned with the high energy of the population. Kess put her hands over her ears, but that didn't help.

Rett stood and order Wubak away from the table. Drake wrapped one arm around Kess' shoulders, "Let me take you home."

Kayla whined through a mouthful of patzia. "She's a blasted Jedi. Let her walk herself home."

Kess rubbed her lips together, her hands still over her ears and her eyes still closed, and dug in deep to find her peace and calm down.

The noise faded to the background of her consciousness, the muck of everyone else's emotions floated into the distance, and Kess was able to relax a little. When she came out of her momentary meditation, she could handle the excitement better, but she realized she didn't have to deal with it at all.

Wubak was still there, looking eagerly for anything from Kess to report. "I'm sorry, Wubak. I'm, not prepared to answer any questions right now."

When Wubak nodded subserviently, she gave Kess her card and begged her to comm when she was ready for an interview. As soon as Wubak walked away, Kess stood… and warbled on her feet in a wave of dizziness. She grabbed the table stiffly.

The motion snared attention.

"Are you all right?" Joanne asked concerned.

Kess shook away light-headedness, "I'm fine. I'm just really tired." She moved away from the table, trying to leave all the noise behind her. "I'm going home."

"You wanna ride?" Yana offered.

Drake stood up with intent. "I'll take her home."

Rett looked with concern at Kess. "It's my speeder, Drake. I'll take her home."

When Kayla glanced at him, he assured her with a kiss. "I'll be right back, lass. Finish your dinner." Rett escorted her out to the street, wrought with concern. "Are you sure you're all right?"

Back in the fresh air, Kess straightened her shoulders and sucked in a cleansing breath. "Really. I just need some sleep. That's all."

Rett walked her down the block to his speeder. "You have been busting your thrusters pretty hard lately."

Kess gripped his arm to keep her balance and strolled with him down the block. She smiled at him through sleepy eyes. "For the record, I like that you and Kayla are together."

Rett's sapphire eyes glinted back to her. "Me too."

He said something more, but Kess' didn't hear him. Now calmer outside of the Mash Pit, she began to relax her mental block. It felt like sitting down after a long day on her feet. She couldn't wait to get home and meditate.

As her mind opened up, she found a glowing blob of light in the Ditty Bag store and recognized him as quickly as if she just heard his voice. Kess stopped her boots and looked at the door with a wise grin.

Confused at first, Rett gave the store a double take when Luke Skywalker stepped out of the place carrying a bag of new goods. He was unsurprised to see her as she was to see him.

"Spying on me?" she accused lightly.

Luke shook his head with easy assurance. "No." His eyes flicked to Rett for a split second then dropped to her hand on his elbow. Without any change in his expression, Luke turned away from it all to climb into his speeder.

"Are you heading back to base?" Kess asked.

Luke slid into the driver's seat and buckled up, avoiding her eyes. "Yeah. Why?"

"Can you drop me off at the barracks?"

Luke seemed rigid, like he didn't want to have anything to do with her right now, but he shrugged his hand on his steering handle and left the engine idling. "Sure."

Kess turned to Rett and pulled her fingers from his forearm. "Thanks for the offer, though."

Rett shifted and slid his hands into his pockets. "Are you sure you want to go with him?" He lowered his voice to her ear. "Isn't he the one who's making you so tired in the first place?"

Kess smiled at Rett. "As a matter of fact, Rett, your right." She bellowed as she opened the speeder door. "He _is_ the one who's making me exhausted in the first place."

Luke shot her a glance, "It's not my fault you grounded Rogue Group," as if that was the only thing that was making her tired.

Kess rolled her eyes and gave Rett a grateful smile. "Good night."

Rett shined back a Lando Calrissian beam and swiveled back to return to the Mash Pit. "Night, lass."

 


	26. LL2 26 Passed Out

** LL2       26        Passed out **

**_Bzzt_**. The doorbell shattered the pre-dawn silence of the darkened barracks apartment.

Joanne wrapped a robe around her shoulders and stepped out of her bedroom.

 ** _Bzzt. Bzzt._** "All right! All right!" She complained at the door as she opened it. She found Luke on the other side, standing impatiently in his running clothes and Joanne sighed impatiently back at him, "Next time, just use your Jedi thing to help yourself in okay?" She turned away from him and went back to her bedroom.

"Isn't Kess up yet?" Luke asked.

"At this hour?" she whined and shuffled grumpily back toward her room.

Luke pressed his lips together, hesitating. "Could you wake her for me, please."

Joanne huffed and went to Kess' room instead, "Yes, _Master_."

Luke turned on a light in the living room as he waited, listening to Joanne's voice in the other room. "Kess, Wake up. Girly girl... Kess!" Joanne's voice grew from impatience to worry to panic. "Commander? She's not waking up!"

Yana stepped out of her room, blinking the way the sleep with complaint. "What's with all the racket?"

Luke skipped into a trot and darted into Kess' room. The woman was out cold still wearing the same shirt she wore at the Mash Pit last night and not much else. Luke could see this because she was only halfway under the covers like she had barely made it into bed before passing out.

Hesitantly, he stepped to her bedside and shook her shoulder. "Kess?"

Yana stepped up to the doorway. "What's the matter with her?"

Luke checked her pulse and checked her pupils. There were signs of life, but he wasn't sure what was normal. He shook her again. "Lendra!" Luke closed his eyes a long moment.

In breathless suspense, Joanne and Yana watched the man do something invisible with the Force and exchanged worried glances at each other.

"Good morning," spouted the sickening sweet voice of the alarm. "It is zero five-forty-seven. Get your butt out of bed and go-" Joanne slapped at the snooze button.

Luke opened his eyes and looked down at the limp body, "We need to get her to medbay. Either of you have a speeder here?"

"I do," Yana nearly came to attention at the bedroom door.

Luke pulled Kess' arm over his shoulders. "Pull it around front." He tried to wrap her legs in the blanket as he picked her up with the other arm. "Joanne, get some clothes for her."

Joanne started moving in a shot.

When Luke picked up the body with both arms, she hung as limp as a wet washcloth. In a worried rush, he carried her out the door.

* * *

An hour later, Yana was shaking her head in the chair of the medbay waiting room. "The Mash Pit was packed last night. Anybody could have slipped something in her beer without us noticing."

Still in his running clothes, Luke set his hands on his hips. " _She_ should have noticed."

Joanne leaned up against the wall with crossed arms. "Everybody was trying to talk to her too. Even Wubak from GNN was there wanting an interview with her."

Two-One-Bee stepped to meet the anxious Jedi in the waiting room. Kess stepped out behind the droid, awake and smiling shyly as she zipped her green coveralls.

"What was wrong?" Luke asked, still concerned.

Two-One-Bee answered mechanically. "Traces of kindlunditophyde in her digestive system."

A human doctor stepped out of the same hall, hurried to finish the explanation and dismiss Two-One-Bee. "Kindlunditophyde is a sleep drug," he explained, turning to Kess. "It's given to patients with chronic insomnia. Have you been having trouble sleeping?"

Joanne shook her head and answered for her. "Not even close."

Kess shot a grin at Joanne and shook her head at the doctor. "No. I haven't taken any medications for anything."

"How much did she have?" Luke asked.

The doctor reported with concern, "Enough to put her out for a couple of days."

Yana nodded with the decision, "Yep, somebody slipped it into your beer."

Kess wrinkled her nose at the idea of another kidnapping attempt. "If they were successful in knocking me out with some drug to get to me," she shrugged, "why am I still here?"

Silence fell over the crowd. They had no explanation for that question.

The doctor handed Kess the discharge datapad to sign as Yana and Joanne moved to leave. "Are you okay girly? We gotta report in."

Kess nodded at them. "I'm fine. Thanks." When the Two-One-Bee stepped away, Kess turned to Luke.

He gave her a scolding glare and turned away.

With an exasperated sigh, Kess followed him out. "It's not my fault, dammit. The Mash Pit was crowded last night. There were dozens of people trying to talk to me."

Luke shoulders were stiff as he marched through the hall in front of her. "Don't explain it to me, Kess," He warned as he opened the door for her and paused to look her in the eye. "I'm not the one who's going to pay for it if the Empire gets you."

Kess met his eye a moment, huffed, and stepped out into the bright daylight. They walked silently together to his speeder until Kess blurted out as she opened the door. "And I had such a screwed up dream last night, too."

Luke said nothing as he climbed in.

"It was too real to be a dream." She continued as if he were paying attention. "I dreamt I gave birth to a baby." She wrinkled her nose at the memory.

Luke paused before he powered up the speeder and glanced at her with a slow growing smile. "Biological clock ticking already?"

"No," she scoffed. "It was just a dream. But the funny part was that my husband was holding the baby in his arms next to my bed and he was showing the baby an action figure of _you_."

"An action figure?" Luke echoed.

"Yeah, you know. It's like a little doll." She held her fingers up to measure an action figure. "But you can't call it a 'doll' because boys play with them. You were in your Jedi Uniform and a little plastic cloak, carrying a little plastic lightsaber." She smiled wistfully out the window to remember the details.

Luke glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. "So who was this husband?"

Her voice was far away, "I have no idea." Then she came back to reality. "It was so real. It was like the other dream I had."

Luke was only half-paying attention to what she was saying as he pulled out of the parking lot. His mind was plagued with the kidnapping attempt and how close they came to getting her.

Her voice was distant. "I had one where I was sleeping on the couch and someone was trying to wake me up."

Luke pulled the speeder up to the sidewalk in front of the complex. "Someone is _always_ trying to wake you up," he complained.

She ignored him and continued as she pulled off the straps, "And I had this one where I was playing Sabacc with toothpicks. And just a few weeks ago, I had one where I was–

Blood red lust spiked out on the Force. Kess stopped talking in the middle of her sentence. She tried to shrug it off. "You know what? It's not that important."

Luke's flattered eyes shined at the steering column and nothing else. He tightened the smile out of his voice. "Lendra," he ordered, "go to work."

Kess avoided his eyes. "Right," she said quickly and hopped out of the speeder.           


	27. LL2 27 Getting Leia's Help

** LL2       27        Getting Leia's Help **

When the Council meeting was over, flowing robes and stiff uniforms all stood up at once. Luke wiped his hand over his face in exhaustion but wouldn't let himself be tired for more than a moment. He grabbed the datapads off the table and pushed himself out of his chair, eyeing Leia at the far end. He thought about how to word it as he weaved between the bodies and sat down in the chair next to her.

Leia glanced up from her datawork but continued to shuffle cards around quickly, tapping in quick notes here and there. "Hi, Luke."

Luke rubbed his lips together, "Hi," but he continued to play with the wording of the request in his head.

Brown eyes flicked up and drilled into him. A motherly smile grew on her face, "What's the matter?"

Luke tapped his thumb on the arm of the chair. "I need you to do me a favor."

Leia dropped the datawork and leaned back in her chair with a curious grin. After a few moments of silence, she shrugged lightly, "So? What's the favor?"

Luke chewed on the inside of his cheek. "Kess needs to learn a Jedi trick that I can't teach her."

Leia raised an eyebrow at him, waiting for the punch line.

The farm boy glanced at her, flushed, and gave in. He leaned over the armrest at her and whispered a brief explanation into her ear. Leia listened intently, but before he was finished, her face splashed with laughter.

Luke backed away, miffed at her reaction.

She shook her head and looked at him, still trying to control the humor. "If you can teach _me_ how to do it, then why can't you teach _her_?"

His eyes flared. "It's a little _different_ , Leia."

She calmed her giggle and patted his knee. "Okay, okay. I'll take care of it. You just tell me what to do." 

* * *

Rain dribbled down from the thick canopy and sizzled when it hit the white saber blades. He wore her down too quickly today. The exhaustion of work compiled with the frustration of training caused Kess' run to decelerate into a jog. She panted for breath as she hopped over a big rock and pushed herself off the ground to keep going.

Luke stepped onto the rock and threw his saber down into the brush. He jumped at her, catching her in the side. They skidded into the grass in a heap. In swift moves, Luke grabbed her wrists and held them against the ground above her head.

Kess was so tired, she just let him.

Straddling her waist, he hovered over her face and whispered through his soft panting for breath, "You're dead."

Kess closed her eyes let him have his way, using her capture as a moment to rest.

Luke panted at her neck for a moment to catch his own breath. He saw a drop of sweat trailing across the flesh over her collarbone and dribble seductively down the side of her neck.

She huffed for air through her nose and fought her mind to ignore the position he had her in.

Luke closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and roughly pushed himself off.

He finished training immediately thereafter that day, and they were both awkwardly silent for the entire drive back to town.

* * *

Luke stepped into the grandest office in the Council Building with his hands easily clasped behind his back. "Good afternoon, Chief Commander. What can I do for you?"

Chief Commander Mothma turned looked up from her terminal and greeted him with a motherly smile. "Commander, please come in." She stepped around her desk as he walked up. "I understand you've been quite busy lately."

"Yes, I have," he smiled tightly back, stressing the honesty.

She approached her own desk from the front of it and swiveled around the face of her terminal. "In light that you are training apprentices now, you may want to consider resigning your commission."

Luke caught his breath and opened his mouth but failed to find a response.

The Chief Commander stood straight again. "It is only a suggestion," she assured. She motioned for him to look at the terminal. "Have you been aware of the media coverage on your apprentice?"

Luke looked down and stopped short. "Yes. Some. I—

The terminal screen showed the front page of a tabloid. The main photo boasted a picture of Luke and Kess on the grinder in their running gear. Kess was on her knees, laughing at the gravel and Luke was standing in front of her with his hands on hips, smiling lovingly down onto the top of her head. The bold caption read:

**_Behind the scenes of Jedi Training._ **

His eyes shifted to the Chief Commander. "I was trying to get her to run more."

The Chief Commander lifted her eyebrows back at him. "I didn't ask."

Luke closed his mouth and pursed his lips.

Chief Commander Mothma turned away from him. "The Alliance has been without a Jedi Guild for so long, the press is hungry to report about a new apprentice in training." She motioned to the terminal again. "It's just bad luck that your first would be a human woman. I wouldn't give the tabloids any regard," she met his eye again. "I just thought you'd like to know."

Luke nodded at her. "Thank you."

The Chief Commander went back behind her desk and sat down. "How is she coming along?"

"Well, she's," he shrugged the truth with a sighing chuckle, "she's a Rebel trooper."

"Like the fencing duel," Mothma nodded with understanding. "Hopefully, she'll break some habits sooner than others."

Luke furrowed his brow. "Fencing duel?"

Mothma looked at him quickly. "I understand it Lieutenant Lendra was intoxicated at a party and found herself in a fencing duel with one of her friends."

Luke's brow furrowed, his chin turned slowly to the side, already knowing the distasteful punch line to this tale.

"Only she used her lightsaber against her friend's practice sword."

Luke closed his eyes and exhaled hard.

Mothma gave him a moment to absorb that and quietly folded her hands on her desk until his reaction was complete.

She spoke respectfully. "As her Jedi Master, how you deal with her acts unbecoming a Jedi Knight is entirely your discretion. But please remember how quickly some of our cultures pass judgment. You don't need me to tell you how frightened people can become of a Jedi who has fallen to the dark side."

"No, Chief Commander. I understand completely." His eyes hardened in thought. "I'll take care of it."


	28. LL2 28 Luke Blows a Gasket

** LL2       28        Luke Blows a Gasket **

Kess yanked the rotting O-ring from one of Rogue Seven's laser barrel and tried to brush off the dust from the tiny part. Neilson peered at the disintegrated rubber in her hand. "How long has it been since they were replaced?"

Kess reviewed the tiny cracks in the rubber that were the culprit of the leak. "There's no record they ever were." Her words came to halt and her eyes looked up. Her casual glance of confusion hardened instantly to dread.

Commander Skywalker stormed around the travel way with fists clenched at his sides and his face red with wrath. Pilots turned with alarm. Repair reared back. Bodies parted the deck in front of him like a zipper ripping open. A drag-runner screeched to a stop before getting run over by his feet. Skywalker marched hard and fast onto Pad 14 and aimed his guns straight at the Jedi Apprentice on the other end of the hangar.

In recent years, the slipshod Rebellion had to organize themselves into a formal military and governmental Alliance. Learning how to work around Luke Skywalker was just one of the many growing pains of winning the war. The troops of Rogue Group always knew that Skywalker was as human as the next guy. Many knew him before he openly carried the Jedi title, some knew him before he carried any rank at all, but _none_ of them knew a version Luke Skywalker without a lightsaber on his belt.

When he returned to uniform to command Rogue Group after the Battle of Endor, dozens questioned the decision, especially when it was obvious the real heroes of that battle were Wedge Antilles and Lando Calrissian. In fact, when the odds of that battle changed color and the troops lost faith they would survive it, Luke Skywalker and his lightsaber were nowhere to be found. It wasn't until after the whole thing was over that the galaxy learned where he was and what he was doing, and still, so much of that story didn't make any sense.

 _Darth Vader_ killed Emperor Palpatine?

And you just stood there to watch?

And then escaped?

Before it blew.

_… Riiight._

Unofficial troop assessment was that Luke Skywalker was _lucky_ to get off the second Death Star before the other seasoned pilots blew it up. As for what he was doing on the battle station in the first place: Kayla Korbosi's conclusion wasn't far off from anyone else's. _"I'll betchya he had to turn to the Dark Side and just doesn't want to admit that's how he did it!"_

And so the Golden Rule was thusly written: Luke Skywalker may very well be a valuable asset, and Thank the Force he's on our side, but for the love of all things holy _don't piss the man off!_

Rogue Group learned how to be okay with that. The worst they'd ever seen out of him was a cold silence. He never needed to yell at anybody. He never really joked with anybody. Skywalker was always simply stoic, which made it very difficult to read how he was truly reacting to anything. Some began to worry that he was going to blow more like a gasket than a slowly heating kettle. At least with a kettle you could see it coming and get out of the way. But as long as Rogue Group was running smoothly and things were going the way _he_ wanted, there was no reason to worry about him blowing up at all.

All that changed when Lendra showed up.

Although there wasn't too much of a shift in his personality, Rogue Group quickly learned to enjoy the Commander's new demeanor. This gentle landscape of easy grins and twinkling eyes made it more comfortable to approach him, joke with him, and respectfully disagree with him. These signs of basic human happiness came balanced, of course, by moments of a Commander's quiet discipline: knitted eyebrows, shallow scowls and, occasionally, a firm reprimand where needed.

Whether the moment was positive or negative, Dark or Light, he always got over it as fast as it came about. It was enough for the Group to sway towards the belief that he was more of the 'kettle' and less of the 'gasket'. This was nice to know and made them grow incrementally more comfortable around him.

That belief solidified further when Lendra took his legs out from under him and grounded the entire squadron. Skywalker was clearly hissing at the seams that day and, for weeks after, barked at _her_ more than anyone else over the small hiccups therein.

But he didn't _blow._

Suspicions that the two had already slept together were nipped quickly in the bud by the sheer fact that Lendra was still _here_. It was unanimously agreed that Skywalker would never subject himself to such a conflict of interest (and he could transfer her out any time he wanted.) It was also accepted that they weren't having any such relations _now_ , or he wouldn't be yipping at her so often and she wouldn't sticking her tongue out at him the minute his back was turned.

Whether she got away with all of it because of the Jedi Training, some friendship they managed during the Frakkan Mission, or the simple truth that she wasn't as afraid of him as everyone else, it didn't matter to them. Lendra just happened to be 'the tool to stretch his leather' so the rest of the group had more of a human to work with. It was working great.

Until today.

Eyes of slate-gray fury narrowed on the Repair Supervisor at the other end of the pad and Skywalker crossed the space with long strides as though he couldn't wring her neck fast enough.

In the middle of the hangar bay, Neilson's eyes were just as deer-in-headlights as Kess' were, but Neilson knew the man wasn't marching over for him. He turned his chin, but not his eyes, and hissed at her for bringing on— whatever this was. "What the _kriff_ did you do?"

Kess didn't know. Kess didn't have time to answer. Kess didn't get a chance to look if he was reaching for his lightsaber. She backed up and bumped her head into the laser cannon, then ducked under that to back up farther, fumbling with terror to unlatch her lightsaber hilt from her belt just in case.

All eyes widened to focus if he was reaching for his own. Those who had blasters now sliding out of their holsters were indecisive if to protect the population from the hero now turning to the dark side or if they should be instead backing _him_ up and shooting down the troublesome-woman-engineer-apprentice for niggling the man so far as to blow his gasket it in the first place.

Lendra managed to get the hilt off her belt long before he got to her, but Skywalker smiled with sick humor when she did. He was still marching at her with fire shooting from his eyes when he raised his hand to the air. She scrambled for the switch, but it slipped from of her hands before ignition and crossed the air into his fist like a tiny ship zipping through hyperspace.

Lendra stopped where she bumped backwards into the sleek nose of Rogue Seven behind her and Skywalker marched right up into her face, cowering like a vulture as though his neck was missing a vertebra. "Locker room. Now."

All of Pad 14 paused for a full heartbeat.

Lendra ducked under Rogue Seven's nose to make some space before quickly stepping around Skywalker and scurried into the locker room.

Wedge and Neilson exchanged looks on this one. Technically, the Commander shouldn't be jumping the chain and ripping Lendra to shreds without her direct report standing in the way. Neilson clearly didn't want to be _anywhere near_ this quarrel, but debated with himself that he should.

Wedge took note of the angle on Skywalker's shoulders when the Jedi filed into the locker room behind the woman and slammed the door control behind him. Wedge eyed Neilson and rapidly shook his head. "Leave it."

* * *

The lockers were all shut tight from weeks without use and the benches were naked of haphazardly tossed flight suits or combat boots. Luke slammed his fist against the door control to shut it behind her and paced to the back of the room. Kess stood at timid attention in the middle of the floor.

Luke stalked up to her with a hiss. "You cannot fathom the number of people in this galaxy watching every move we make in suspense whether or not you are going to pass this training, and I will _not_ make any excuses for you."

Even if this was a Jedi thing, she felt better taking this with her eyes fixed on nothing in front of her, but she couldn't yank her eyes from his nose to nose glare.

He lifted his fist and shook her lightsaber hilt in her face. "You have no idea how much work I have put into rebuilding the Jedi Guild and you have just sliced that work _IN **HALF**_!"

Kess clenched her teeth. Her palms started to sweat at her sides. She closed her trembling eyes and debated if it was going to come by lightsaber or by fist.

He stalked around the room in front of her. "You want to show off?" He taunted, "D'you want to _brag_?" His voice rose to a yell, "You want to wave this thing around like it's a toy!?" He threw the hilt at her. It sailed in the air passed her head, crashed against the lockers behind her, and dropped to the floor with a thud.

Skywalker drew his lips into a thin line and stomped back into her face. He came nose to nose with her again and screamed with unbridled rage. "Then you'd better find someone else to apprentice with because _I WON'T TOLERATE IT!"_

Kess flinched, but managed to fight the instinct to raise her forearms in defense. She knotted her mouth shut, trembling, but stared hard at his collar. Big tears gathered on the lashes of her unblinking eyes.

Kess consciously hoped it was going to come by lightsaber, for then she wouldn't have to live with the crushing heartbreak of the aftermath.

Luke ducked deeper to get into her line of sight, "What's the matter? Am I _scaring_ you? Are you afraid I'm gonna do something _violent_? Something **_evil_**?" He gritted his teeth with an insidious grin and boomed with wrath. "Are you afraid I'm going to turn to the **_dark side_**?!"

Kess shook in her boots. She closed her eyes with resignation. Tears splashed onto her cheeks.

Luke watched her for a long beat, and then his whole chest raised and lowered with a silent, slow breath of clean air. His shoulders relaxed back to his usual posture. His voice fell beaten and weak. "Then how do you think all those people felt when a drunk Jedi ignited her lightsaber at a party and started slicing things up?"

Her eyes turned up.

Luke cocked an eyebrow.

The redness was already gone from his face. The wrath was missing from his eyes. Luke wasn't angry at all. He was faking this whole thing. He was making a point.

Kess trembled and coughed to begin breathing again.

He was quiet again, calm again, but now his voice hissed with sour disappointment, which, to Kess, was so much worse. "If I ever hear about one of these stunts again, _especially_ if I hear it from the Chief Commander first, then you really _will_ get to see me turn to the dark side."

Kess closed her eyes and shuddered.

Luke turned on his heels and walked out.

* * *

Rogue Group was still milling about on deck, trying to figure out if they should get back to work or duck and cover when Skywalker emerged from the locker room a minute later. He left the door open with his Apprentice still alive inside and strolled over to the managers' office without talking to anyone.

Wedge and Neilson exchanged glances once more and… _broke_. Wedge skipped to catch up so he could fall into flank beside Luke. Neilson rushed to the locker room, failing to catch Lendra as she stormed out. The woman ducked quickly into a run across the Pad and disappeared into the tiny supply closet in the far corner. Ashten tried to help, bringing the lightsaber hilt out of the locker room and debated with Nielsen what they should do with it.

Wedge saw all that over his shoulder as he threaded the doorway. Luke kicked back in his desk chair like he was bored. More for Rogue Group's comfort than for Luke's, Wedge closed the door and stepped to the window blinds close them too. His voice was careless and cool. "So what was that dogfight all about?"

Luke leaned hard in his squeaky chair and rubbed a palm over his face. "It's a Jedi thing," he mumbled.

Wedge strolled up in front of his desk with a deep, rebuffing nod, leaned over Luke's desk and pressed his palms to frown down. "Request permission to speak freely—

Luke flashed a smile at him. "I'm fine!"

"I'm not talking about you," Wedge snapped. "I assume you know how badly she's shaking in her boots out there?"

" _Deliberately_ ," Luke pointed out with a hard voice. He spread his hands. "Believe me, Wedge, if I had another Master around to teach her this one, I would have used them."

"And what about everyone else?"

Luke rolled his eyes away. "They'll get over it."

Wedge rolled his shoulders back and cocked his weight onto one foot. "I hate to be the one to have to say this out loud, man, but there is a conflict of interest developing here."

"No." Luke looked him directly in the eye and shook his head with the severity of his answer. "No. There is not. In fact," Luke fidgeted with a broken piece of his desktop as he talked, "it's better this way. You guys keep expecting us to be aloof and inhuman. And I've been… _gentle_ because I know how much they fear me out there." Luke flashed an angry smile at Wedge to realize it. "But if we all _liked_ working in terror of our own crew, none of us would have left for the Rebellion in the first place!"

Wedge dipped a grin and dropped his eyes to the desktop.

Luke rubbed his palm over his face again, sighing audibly and gestured out to the wall. " _That_ ," he settled, "was a lesson to teach her _why_ Jedi need to be gentle with our own crew. But at the same time, it doesn't hurt for the crew to see that, just because Jedi are yelling, it _doesn’t_ mean that something is about to get sliced."

Wedge absorbed that with a tiny nod, but didn't move to leave.

Luke shrugged his fingers off the desk. "What?"

"There is still a conflict of interest—

Luke crooned his neck back to cough, "Oh, blast, Wedge!"

Wedge whipped a sharp whine of his own. "Don't give me that crap! I met you fresh off the farm!"

Luke slapped his palms onto the desktop and pushed to his feet with a shot. "Fine! Yes! Go ask her out! I don't give a damn!"

Wedge reared back. "That _is not_ what I'm suggesting!"

Luke rattled both hands in the air with true aggravation. "Then what the hell is your problem?"

Wedge met his eye with a _very_ quiet voice and pointed it out to Luke, step by meticulous step. "Get her out of Rogue Group. Finish this stupid training. Then _you_ ask her out."

Luke kept the man's hard gaze. He pressed his mouth shut.

Wedge left it there, unanswered, and turned away to open the blinds, open the door, and get back to business.

 


	29. LL2 29 Leia and Kess

** LL2       29        Leia and Kess **

A cool wind blew brown leaves into tiny whirlwinds along the sidewalk. The small downtown street of South Base was quiet on the late weeknight. Patrons huddled inside the few establishments that were still open. Street lamps glowed yellow on the occasional speeder that drove by.

Kess stuffed her chilled fingers into her front pockets and brought her shoulders to her ears to let the jacket's collar protect her neck from the bitter wind. She waited apprehensively in front of the Mash Pit, listening to the barely audible music from inside. She blew up at her bangs with a sigh and sensed out the approach of her date. Casually, she stepped to that direction until a single body came around the corner.

The other woman was dressed in pants and hiking boots, a burgundy blouse, and a brown leather jacket. Mahogany hair was braided in a tidy figure-eight bun behind her ears, its upper-class neatness was the only outward sign that this woman was ever royalty.

"Good evening, Councilor." Kess gave her a half grin and turned to open the door. Leia nodded a regal thank you as she stepped into the warm air of the restaurant. They slid into a corner booth where the high-backed chairs would help shield them from casual observation. Leia let Kess ordered dinner and, when the tiny holo-waiter sunk back into the wall emitter, a strange silence fell over them.

Kess brought her elbows to the table and folded her fingers together. "So. What brings me the pleasure of an incognito dinner with the next Minister of State?"

"You really get down to business, don't you?"

Kess smiled to admit. "I've been plagued with curiosity since I got your message."

Ales slid on the table and Leia took one of them. "Why do _you_ think we're here?"

Kess rubbed her lips together and flashed a smile. "I think I'm about to get reprimanded over something that makes farm boys blush."

"Oh?" Leia rested her chin on her palm, eye shining with curiosity. "What did you do?"

Kess shied. "Ididn't do it this time." She pointed at herself with both index fingers. "This one _wasn't_ me."

"Ah. So you’re blaming 'this one' on him?" Leia's brows wrinkled. "How many have there been?"

"Eh." Kess thought a moment, then admitted. "I guess that depends on what we're talking about?"

Leia responded smoothly. "I thought we were talking about things that make farm boys blush."

"Well, that's a pretty… _wide_ … category."

Leia chuckled with deep honesty. "Not really."

Kess dashed her head aside with a shrug.

Leia folded her forearms across the tabletop in front of her. "Why would you fear to be reprimanded if you weren't the culprit in the first place?"

Kess had to think before she could put the answer into words. "Because he already got his reprimand for it."

Leia's brows lifted into her forehead. "From whom?"

"My grandfather," Kess said. "Apparently, dead Jedi can come back as ghosts."

Leia's eyes flicked to nothing in the air, put pieces together, and laughed low and deep.

Kess looked at her fiddling fingers. "It wasn't what you're probably thinking."

Leia sobered with a friendly understanding. "I wasn't thinking that." She angled her smile the other way. "But am I safe to assume it would have been had your grandfather not appeared?"

Kess shifted her eyes with a tight grin and a tiny voice. "Probably."

Leia nodded with a deeper understanding… of all of this… She brightened with respect. "You are partially correct. He is uncomfortable teaching you on this particular topic, so he sent me. But he didn't say anything about it being a reprimand."

Kess shrugged. "So what's the lesson?"

"It's a method to calm sexual frustration."

Kess' eyebrows knotted with humor. " _Other_ than _sex_?"

Leia smiled at her mug.

Kess' caught her breath in her throat, trying not to grin at this. "What's wrong with the original method?"

Leia pointed out with careful words, "Perhaps it will make things less complicated while _you_ _wait_."

Kess pointed at herself again. Her voice squealed. " _I_ don't have to wait for anything. _He's_ the one who wants to solve everything with meditation."

Leia's voice hiked too. "And how is that working out for you? Your grandfather clearly thinks more drastic measures are necessary."

"That day was _not_ my fault!" She fidgeted with the sweat on the side of her mug. "I… just…" she shrugged again, voice small, "didn't stop him."

Leia cocked her head. "Maybe the reason your grandfather showed up is because _a Jedi lost control_."

Kess humbled.

Leia's voice softened. "And maybe Luke sent me instead so that he can be absolutely certain he doesn't fall into that mistake again trying to teach the lesson to you. But he knows you need to learn this trick so you don't struggle so much too."

Kess nodded respectfully and then lifted her chin. "If I may clarify: the way this is all being worded makes it sound _a lot_ worse than it really was."

"Fair to say," Leia assented. "So consider this: if sexual frustration weren't a factor in this Jedi Training, would you get through it easier?"

"Honestly? Probably not." Kess pointed out. "And for the record, I'm not trying to talk you out of it. Teach me! I don't care! All I'm saying is that it's not going to do me much good. Besides, I have other methods too." Kess blushed even more to admit that.

Leia rested the side of her face on her backwards palm, grinning at all this. "Okay. Let's take this one step at a time." They laughed with mutual embarrassment for a moment. "First of all: You can sense emotions right?"

Kess dashed her head. "Yeah, but I kind of shield it when—

Leia stopped her with a gesture. "But it's a Jedi skill."

"Oh. Yeah. Sure."

"So if the guy in the barracks next door is the middle of an intimate moment with his wife, can you detect it on the Force?"

Kess gulped and nodded. "That's one of the reasons why I shield it."

Leia bowed her chin to that and continued, "So if the guy in the barracks next door is in the middle of an 'alternate method' because his wife is not available…?"

Kess rubbed her lips together. Clearly, this had occurred already. "Again: shield."

"Okay. And if the guy in the barracks next door is another Jedi with _twice_ the ability to sense that kind of thing than _you_ do…?"

Kess buried her eyes in both palms, but that didn't mask the fruit punch color racing to her face.

Leia diverted her eyes to give the woman some relative privacy during her recovery but continued to grin with a deeper wisdom and stronger support.

Kess flopped her hands out on the table with almost a shouting fervor. "How is it any different than what he has to deal with every day anyway? He's surrounded by just as many other barracks rooms as I am!"

"Kess, the point is that he doesn't want you in the middle of _anything_ until your training is over."

Kess squeaked out the obvious, "Then why doesn't he just order me to be celibate?"

Leia nearly yelled back the equally obvious. " _Because he can't_."

"He orders me to do just about everything else."

"But all that is about Group Command and Jedi Training."

" _And this isn't_?"

"Of course it isn't! You think things would have gotten so bad to make your grandfather show up if this was about 'proper etiquette' and 'chain of command'?"

Kess scratched her ear. "I'm confused."

"Kess, your _Commander_ has no right to tell you to refrain. Your _Jedi Master_ can't afford to confuse the matter. And the _'farm boy'_ (as you put it) doesn't yet have the latitude to even _speak_ to you yet, much less ask you to wait for him."

Kess rattled her head and wrinkled her brows. "He doesn't even want me! He has made it painfully clear that the only thing in there is an occasional human instinct. _He. Is. A. Man._ As far as I'm concerned, that's a 'medical' condition. And yeah, he's better at hiding it than everybody else because he's a Jedi. But he's _still a man_."

Leia folded her lips closed at the outburst, trying not to agree with it.

Kess sighed with mature understanding, but weary of it too. "And I'm glad to know he is still human. And I'm honored I got to be the momentary distraction that proved it, but that's _all it was_. Please assure him that I _know_ that's all it was. I've had boyfriends before. I know how things work. I didn't just fall through the garbage chute from the obstetrics department. _**I get it**_. " She huffed, then shrugged. "I'll take the trick, and I will refrain, (or 'refrain more' to be more accurate)," She insisted this with pain and laughter shining equally as bright in her eyes and pointed at her own chest, "but if this is all about defusing how _**I** _ feel, a trick to calm sexual frustration _isn't going to do me any good_."

Leia eyed her carefully.

Kess blinked back a tear behind a smile of stress. She meditated a split second then distracted her sights to sip her beer.

Leia licked her lower lip. Her voice came out low and careful. "I'm not going to report anything back to him about this discussion except to simply say that I have fulfilled his request."

Kess shrugged apathetically.

"All of this is confidential."

"I appreciate that." Kess shrugged again.

"So how _do_ you feel about him?" Leia ordered softly.

Kess stared back at her, blinked twice, looked away, and blinked a third time. She rubbed her lips together as she fiddled with her ale mug, then smiled at Leia with a whisper of honest anguish. "Heartbroken."

Leia couldn't help but hurt a little bit too.

"Daily." Kess smiled through wizened tears. " _Hourly_." Her whisper was almost nonexistent. "He assessed it once that I have a childhood crush on a superhero I saw on the vid. And I guess he's right. But knowing that doesn't make it go away. And being around him all the time just makes it worse. I'm just enjoying every moment I get. Because I know that as soon as my training is over, it's _over_. He'll spend all his time with his next apprentice and I'll see him at the occasional reception or something. And twenty years from now, I'll be on some dusty outpost somewhere, spinning my yarn to all the younglings that, yeah, once upon on a time, I was on a first-name basis with Luke, Han, and Leia."

Leia glowed bittersweet.

"Every moment of this training is precious. Because _I know_ what's going to happen next. So, confidentially, between you and me, I will keep 'keeping my cool'. I will refrain from all extra-curricular activities that make farm boys blush. But sexual frustration tricks aren't gonna do me much good because that's not what my problem is."

Leia pressed her mouth.

"Usually, I wouldn't ask, but since you're here, please do me a favor. When all of this is all over, and you see my transfer request on your desk, please remember _this conversation_ and understand why I'm truly asking." When Kess smiled then, a tiny tear squeezed out onto her temple. "Especially if he starts dating somebody else."

Leia could only nod with respect.

Kess licked her lower lip. She pinched the bridge of her nose, wiped her eye, and murmured. "I know you said this is confidential but… I'm embarrassed enough as it is—

"Absolutely." She met Kess' eyes with sincerity. "Confidential."

Kess nodded, satisfied, and took a deep sigh to pull herself together. It was as though the woman didn't realize all this until it was coming out of her mouth. Now that Kess was coming down off the confession, she closed her eyes again.

Leia gave her a minute to meditate and used that time to absorb her own new understanding of the _misunderstanding_ between the Master and the Apprentice.

Then, quickly, Kess popped her eyes open, sat up with a quick breath, and sucked down a swig of ale. "So how do I do this new trick?"

Leia smiled.

 


	30. LL2 30 Luke, Han, and Leia

** LL2       30        Luke, Leia and Han **

By the time she got home, Leia's mind had already drifted to her task list at the office tomorrow. In the corner of the living room, Han hung out behind the little bar, cradling a drink with both hands, and muttered conversationally to the Jedi lounging on the barstool.

Leia strolled up to join them. "Hi, Luke. What are you doing over here tonight?"

"Kess said she was meeting with you tonight."

She folded her elbows on the bar top and eyed him suspiciously.

"Well?" Luke was confused why he had to spell this out. "How did it go?"

Leia began to speak, but it only came out as a deep, knowing laughter.

Han sighed at the ceiling. "I hate it when you guys do this."

She brought Han up to speed, carefully. "Luke asked me to teach Kess a Jedi lesson in sexual restraint."

Luke expounded maturely. "There's a Force trick that makes it all go away."

Han set his glass down with a clunk, shifted on his feet, and blinked over bulging eyes at Luke. "Does the trick work on _other people_?"

Luke flashed a shy smile at the man. "Sorry."

Han raised his voice at Luke as he thumbed over at his wife. His face contorted with disbelief. "And you taught _her_?"

Luke dropped his smile to the floor.

After a beat, Han grumbled with a stomp of his foot. "And I was about to go to medbay."

Leia spread her hands with a laughing plea to the air. "I need to sleep _sometime_!"

Luke snorted a snigger and turned his face away from all that. Han curled a lip at Luke as he uncorked a new bottle, obscenities gurgling unintelligibly in his throat.

Luke finally spread a palm. "I am sorry, Han. I didn't have a choice. Kess _had_ to learn it. And the longer I took trying to figure out how to bring it up with her—

Leia spelled it out for her husband. "Han, it's probably driving him crazy to be able to detect it when she's handling things 'in her own way'."

Han slammed the bottle on the bar and crooned a new whine, "You mean to tell me you can _detect it_ when—

Luke gave him an eye of gentle assurance. "Proximity is a significant factor on this one." He shrugged a hand. "Besides, I block it all the time anyway."

"Proximity." Han echoed obnoxiously as he handed his wife a glass of wine. "'On the same _planet'_ kind of proximity? Or 'on the same _Millennium Falcon_ kind of proximity?"

Luke dropped his elbow to the bar top and covered his eyes with a palm. _"I block it, Han!"_

Han cocked his weight onto one foot, locked his elbow to lean against the bar, and eyed Luke with a new thought. "What about 'in the next room of a Sultani hotel suite' kind of proximity?"

Luke kept his palm over his eyes and shoved a huff of defeat through his nose.

Han dropped his forearms on the bar and whispered to brag at his wife. "And I didn't even need Jedi tricks to figure that one out."

Leia held back her giggle.

Han dared to ask, "Why didn't you just teach it to her then?"

Luke peeked through his fingers at the man, but dropped his hand to admit it. "She didn't have the skill then."

Han's voice ducked low and loud. "Did you _block it_ then?"

Luke scrunched his face like a guilty little boy. His voice was tiny, "Mostly."

Han bleated, laughing loud at the kid. " _Then why in hell are you trying to teach it to her now?_ "

Leia spoke succinctly to her husband. "Because he's a _gentleman_."

Luke's voice tucked unusually deep, "much to my chagrin."

Han dropped his chin to his chest and laughed at it all.

After a moment, Luke rubbed his lips together, fidgeted with his earlobe and grimaced Leia's way. "So, what did she say?"

Leia eyed him with loving denial.

Luke groaned with impatience. "Come on, Leia, it's late—"

"Luke, I can't tell you."

Han settled his hip against the bar and listened.

Luke narrowed his eyes at his sister. This was unexpected.

She shook her head and shrugged it. "You asked me to teach her a trick in the interest of diffusing this entire topic. I did that."

"Yeah, but—

"But nothing! She knows how to block _you_ now too, doesn't she? You don't have any idea what's going on anymore, do you?" Leia shook her head some more. "I didn't go in there to spy for you."

"I appreciate your concern, but as her Jedi Master—

Leia scolded him with a quiet, clear whisper. "As her Jedi Master, you shouldn’t have needed my help in the first place."

Luke's eyes stretched aside to warn her not to go there.

Leia's eyes met his just as firmly that it was too late for that.

Guilty eyes dropped to the bar top again. Luke clearly didn't like how swiftly he was losing control over this entire training.

"Luke, you're human. And I'm glad to see that." Leia smiled warmly at the man. "But if you're going to write the rules, you're going to have to play by them too."

His mouth curled in on itself.

Leia stood, patted his arm, and kissed his temple. "Go home and get some rest."


	31. LL2 31 Last Love

** LL2       31        Last Love **

They had been sorting records in the same room since dawn, but Luke had been in such a daze for most of it that Kess had to remind him they should break for lunch. She watched him quizzically as he cooked, wondering what was haunting him, but knew better that to waste her breath asking about it. She sat at the tiny round dining table in his barracks apartment and wrinkled her forehead when he abruptly slid the plate in front of her. Without a word, he sat down and picked up his fork.

Kess watched him stab at a piece of meat as she thought about it and considered a change in strategy. Instead of asking him what was wrong, she'd asked him something that would rile him, and that would get him talking. Maybe she could even manage to steer the conversation in a particular direction. She blotted her lips together and adjusted her seat. Wording it carefully in her head first, she said, "Tell me about the last woman you were in love with."

Luke's chewing paused, but he didn't look up, "Why?"

"We never did finish that conversation before it went 'off the record', and I'm still curious about what's legal." She looked at her own dish to avoid eye contact and slammed the door harder over her emotions.

"Besides, like you said, who else am I going to talk to about it with?"

Luke exhaled through his nose, still not looking at her, "I told you to forget it."

She clenched her teeth, quickly calmed her temper, and tried to sound confident, but it came out with a biting tone. "That's not what I'm asking about. You said you wanted to explain it before I started dating, so I'm asking in regards to that explanation."

He leaned an elbow on the table, now drilling his eyes into her, "What happened to your plans of waiting until your training is over?"

Kess met his eyes with firm vindication, and spoke passed the lump in her throat, "If it was such a big mistake, maybe I should consider changing my plans."

His expression didn't change like she'd hoped, but his eyes continued to carve holes in her head. He inhaled slowly and lowered his gaze to his plate, looking at (but not seeing) the slice of vegetable he decided to fiddle with.

Luke's chest felt bruised. He slammed the door harder over his emotions so she wouldn't sense it. They were friends. Close friends, but _just_ friends. And it had to stay that way. If the apprentice suspected she had her Master wrapped around her little finger, all the discipline of Jedi Training would dive right into a black hole.

The silence grew heavier as the seconds clicked, but he had not yet said, 'I'll tell you when you're ready', or any of his other common denials. Kess gave up and lowered sad eyes to her plate.

"Her name was Gariel," he said quietly.

Kess struck with shock that he was answering a personal question.

"She was an ambassador on the Bakuran system." His movements quickened and he brought up the bread roll to his mouth, pretending (unsuccessfully) like the subject didn't bother him.

Kess remembered the food in her mouth and started chewing again.

He looked down at his food as he spoke of it, playing with the food with his fork. "She was Force-sensitive but refused to learn how to use it. She believed in that Balance religion I told you about; the one where everyone is supposed to be half-dark and half-light so, to her, as a Jedi practicing only the light side, I was a heathen."

Kess picked up her glass as she watched him, "That had to be a serious flaw in the relationship."

He smiled wryly. "There _wasn't_ one. She didn't like me from the start because of that." He sighed again and resumed eating. "I guess I never had a chance."

Kess kept her voice low and careful in case he would shut up as soon as he remembered to whom he was talking, but she was too intrigued about the woman who turned Luke's head to try to keep silent. "What did she look like?"

"She had one green eye and one gray eye, and long reddish brown hair." Luke stared at the air as if remembering the woman's eyes.

"Do you still love her?"

Luke didn't break his stare at the memory, but squinted a little, barely shaking his head, "No. When she was around, my Force senses tingled." With small movements, he wiggled his fingers in the air. "I think that it was that tingling that I liked so much. I guess I really didn't know her that well." He pulled himself out of one memory and compared it to another, "It was different than the woman before." He smirked at the irony as if it was fresh, "But I guess it would be."

Kess searched his distant stare with a curious grin, "Why?"

Luke looked at Kess and the humor of the story glowed in his eyes. He gave himself permission to tell her at least that much of his long story. "There was this woman," he announced as he leaned his elbows on the table. "I felt a connection the first moment I saw her and I grew to like her more the more I got to know her. She was beautiful and bold, strong and stubborn." His tone dropped, "but she wasn't interested. She fell for one of my best friends." He started chuckling at it all.

Kess started squinting at him as she began to wonder if she'd met these people. It seemed so, by the way he was talking.

Luke's eye twinkled at her, he picked up his glass and said it just before he sipped. "And then I found out that she was my sister."

Her eyes popped out of her head. "Ouch!"

Luke smiled tightly and sat back to start eating again, "Yeah. My 'long story' is full of those little paradoxes."

Kess giggled at him, shaking her head in sympathy.

Luke pointed his fork at her, "And that stuff is strictly confidential, by the way. If I hear any jokes about my sister on the air, there _will_ be hell to pay."

She was still giggling at him, "I don't think anybody is stupid enough to crack jokes about the Minister of State on the ops channel." She swallowed some sweetwater and licked her lips, "Does Solo know?"

Luke inhaled deeply, and nodded, wide-eyed, "Oh yeah. He knows."

Kess began to relax because he had begun to relax. She noted her success in the back of her mind: she found a way to get Luke talking about personal stuff. Her voice was warm and her eyes glowed. "Sounds to me like you always pick the one's you can't have. No wonder you haven't had a girl in eight years."

He forced himself not to look at her. "Tell me about it."

Kess smiled warmly, still having a hard time believing Luke's poor boy story.

"What about you?" he turned the tables on her. "Tell me about your last love."

Her eyes fluttered and diverted her eyes to her food, "Oh uh, there's not much to tell." She bit her lip and cursed the plan that backfired on her.

"Bantha fodder," he said through a smile and a mouthful.

Kess glanced up, glanced away, and shrugged. "Okay, okay. His name was Maser. He was a pilot. He was arrogant. He was greedy. And he wanted me to arrange my life around his flight schedule. And I did, for a while. But I found out that half of what was supposed to be a flight schedule was _Kayla_ who had _also_ fallen for the flight schedule story."

Luke's chewing paused. He gave her a full blink. He swallowed his bite. "So _that's_ why she feels guilty when you're not dating."

"Bingo." Kess stretched her mouth. "It wasn't as bad as it sounds, though. Maser and I were more," she squinted, trying to figure out how to describe it, "just filling empty spaces for each other. I don't think we were ever 'in love'. Three months into it and I don't think we grew closer than intimate shipmates. After it was over and I thought about it, I realized I was only interested in him because something about him reminded me of Rix."

Luke tried to act like he wasn't engrossed in the tale, and continued eating, "So who was Rix?"

Kess lowered her gaze to her plate, still feeling the echo of pain and guilt in the memory. "Rix wanted to settle down, marriage, children, all that flak. And I wasn't ready. I wanted to party, fight with the Rebellion until we at least _won_ something... When we were all in port in Nakisa, we rented a hotel room and talked about it. Seriously. And we agreed, as soon as the war was over, we'd go. We'd find a nice quiet planet with a nice quiet place…" Her voice went cold as she poked her fork at her food, "A few weeks later, we all went to the Battle of Endor. I was on the _Mon Taraka_ and Rix was on the _Liberty_."

Luke stopped chewing. He didn't need an explanation of what happened to the _Liberty_. The memory was clear as a crystal goblet. The Rebellion fleet was trapped between a half-built Death Star and several fleets of Star Destroyers. TIEs and X-wings buzzed around like mad flies, the shield wasn't down yet, and the Rebellion already thought that their odds were poor. But a green bolt of searing power shot out from the eye of the Death Star and blew the pickle-shaped, Mon Calamari Cruiser _Liberty_ , into instant space dust.

Kess stood on the docking bay of the _Mon Taraka_ in heart-crushing disbelief, staring at the sudden chunk of empty space in the middle of the battle. Kayla hurried to her, stepped directly into her stare, and put her hands on the woman's shoulders. With a firm voice, Kayla looked deep into Kess' pained eyes and ordered, "Cry later."

Kess inhaled and knew the woman was right. They matched the racing feet of the engineers around them, trying to get as many X-wings patched up as possible to get back out there and fight.

She and Kayla weren't best friends until that very moment. Kayla herself lost several close friends that day, and on the very first Victory Night when the Rebellion celebrated the winning of the war, the two women leaned into each other's shoulders and cried.

Luke brushed the back of his fingers on her forearm. "Are you all right?"

Kess blinked herself back to the present and forced a smile. "Yeah, I'm fine. It was a long time ago."

'There will be others, girly girl.' Kayla said afterwards. 'You just gotta get out there and look for 'em.' At the time, such words of comfort were annoying.

Kess smiled wider at the memory of her girlfriend's preaching. As soon as Kess stopped crying over Rix, Kayla started kicking her rear end to fill the void in her heart with someone else, and the girly had been doing it ever since.

Kess eyed the memories and grinned at the unusual friendship she had with Kayla. She closed her eyes, meditated it clean, and looked at Luke. "So. What _are_ the rules of Jedi dating?"

Luke grinned with warm pride at how her sour grief was quickly controlled. His smirk widened when she met his eyes. He told her with absolute honesty, "I have no idea."

They shared a blush and a laugh.

 


	32. LL2 32 Spies Are Still Here

** LL2       32        Spies are still here **

Lieutenant Yana Dietrich sat at her station with a headset fitted over her chestnut hair. The glowing letters from the terminal screen and the colorful LEDs sliced through the usual darkness of the Command Center and shined geometric designs on her face. Captain Solo watched the screen over her shoulder, but Yana was used to that. He scratched his chin and leaned onto the console, "Try a tetalin descrambler."

Yana nodded and typed. The watched the screen for a moment and she shook her head just as Captain Solo sighed in defeat. Yana looked at her fingers for a minute then typed more as she tried something else.

Captain Solo turned around and scratched his head, reviewing the other security personnel and military leaders that mumbled in the darkness. Then, from the hallway of lighted glass stat boards, in rushed his wife with the kid at her heels.

Solo crossed his arms as they approached, "Does the name Mugwot Pon mean anything to you?"

They both shook their heads and stepped up to look over Yana's shoulder.

"We've tried all the Imperial descramblers we know," Solo explained. "And I was going down the list of codes some of the gang lords use. I can't get a match."

Leia read the addresses of the message. "It's from Coruscant."

Han raised an eyebrow, "It's from 'Master Kadaan' on Coruscant."

Luke pressed his lips together in thought and murmured to Yana, "Do we have the omektako descrambler?"

Yana repeated the word to him to make sure she heard it right and began to type.

Han squinted at Luke. "Why don't I know that one?"

Luke glanced at him briefly and explained as he sat down next to Yana. "It's the code Boba Fett used to communicate with Lord Vader during his trip from Cloud City to Jabba's Palace." He leaned forward and watched the strange characters turn into letters one by one. "You were indisposed."

Han would have made a retort, but his eyes and Leia's eyes watched the screen, waiting for the message to come clear one letter at a time.

 **TO: Mugwot Pon** / **MUGP77222@FRAKAN.NET**

**FR: Master Kadaan / NET: MSPK00001@LOCKET.NET**

**Ready mynock only. Keep blue secured. Awaiting signal.**        

Leia spoke softly, "Looks like a plan is about to hatch."

* * *

**Entry # 202**

**The message we intercepted yesterday was a little disquieting. We've always had Imperial spies floating around, but now I feel like they're closer than I can ignore. I'm worried that this Mugwot Pon is after Kess, though there is no actual evidence to substantiate that. And I'm not worried about what the Imperials want with her so much as I'm worried about her reaction to them if she's captured.**

**She is learning at such a breakneck pace these days it scares me. I can easily sense Ben's strength in her now but she lacks his discipline. She makes jokes when I'm trying to be serious. She wants to play when we're supposed to be training. She complains like a teenager and shoulders responsibility like an Admiral. And she still has to remind herself to keep her temper, or calm a fear.**

**I wish I could take her to face her father now but I have to wait for her to finish the overhaul. She needs to know the truth about Obi-Wan. After she passes that, I'll tell her about my father. I keep having to calm my own anxiety about it. I hope she'll forgive me for not telling her already. I just want to get that part over with.**

**Hell, I want to get this all over with.**


	33. LL2 33 Yoda's Idea

** LL2       33        Yoda's Idea **

Luke sat in a broken chair near the row of empty Deck Sup desks and faded into the wall as much as he could. They all knew he was there, but everyone was out on deck working on X-wings and ignoring him entirely. Luke kicked back with patience and interest to watch his Repair team in action.

At a glance, Kess looked like she was pacing up and down the parking lot but the reality was that she was jumping from one problem to the next. She'd established a first-name basis with almost everybody, and the repair crew was no longer shy to report a mistake or carry out orders.

Luke realized the reason that they respected her so much was not because of her rank, or because of the lightsaber on her belt, but because she was just as filthy as they were. She respected Neilson for the same reason. She didn't stuff herself in an immaculate uniform and hide in the office like their last Repair Supervisor. Kess treated everyone with human kindness and respect down to the simplest droid.

It was a fine trait in a Jedi Knight.

"Huh?" Kess curled her nose at Ashten.

Ashten said it again. "Rogue One's got a loose landing foot."

Kess swiveled her heels to turn to the craft in question, looming no more than two parking spaces away and scratched the back of her head as she strolled slowly to it. Ashten pushed a green wisp of hair behind her pointed ear and explained why no one noticed the problem before. Kess waved a hand in the air, not interested in blamestorming, and squatted in front of the craft's foot to try to think of a solution to the problem.

A loose landing foot was not difficult to fix… unless you didn't have a crane with which to pick up the X-wing. They already turned the crane back into Complex Supply and it took weeks to reserve its use. The Repair crew already cashed in all their friendly favors to get a hold of parts and test equipment. Kess and Neilson were rapidly running out of witty ideas to get Rogue Group back in the sky.

Luke watched in silence as Kess called Neilson over. He could barely detect the words as they talked about the availability of another crane, or even the same crane they had just turned in last week. Neilson shook his head. Ashten groaned at the whole thing. Kess blew up at her bangs.

As the gathering of now five grunts peered closer at Rogue One's crooked ankle, Luke's eyes turned up to the sky and spread a full smile.

Luke secretly thanked Master Yoda for a wonderful idea.

Luke pushed himself off the broken chair and strolled closer to the action. Folding his arms at his chest, he leaned his shoulder against an equipment rack behind them all. He called out a loud smile to the crowd, "You're thinking too much like a grease monkey!"

All heads turned to him, remembering again that he was here. No one was particularly worried, but everyone knew at whom his comment was aimed.

Kess spread her hands to smile back at him, "I _am_ a grease monkey."

Luke smiled but didn't move. The others grinned as well, eyes moving back and forth from Commander Master to Repair Sup Apprentice. This was an unusual topic to witness on the Pad.

Kess took two steps to him, "What? I'm supposed to use the Force to convince the X-wing to magically heal itself?"

She got a few chuckles out of that one and she herself smirked at the absurdity of the idea, but Luke shook his head at her. "Think about it." He leaned forward just slightly, "And think like a Jedi."

Kess wrinkled her face at him and looked at the crippled X-wing. Neilson, Ashten, Rogan, Seidrik and a half dozen others waited with casual interest at what _abracadabra poof_ they might see today.

Kess finally shook her head and shrugged, "I don't know. The only thing I can think of is to use Force Persuade on Supply to have them give us the crane back, but I know that's not right because they'd give it to us if they could."

Luke shook his head and stomped over to the broken boat, "No, no, no." He slapped the palm of his hand on a lower fuselage and waved his hand at her as he spat out the obvious. "Pick it up!"

Her eyes popped out of their sockets. " _You've. Lost. Your. Mind._ Do you have any idea how heavy that thing is?"

"So?" Luke shrugged at her, "Size matters not."

Kess stepped backwards, waving her arms in the air. "Okay, you've lost your mind _and_ your sense of grammar."

Luke smiled wide and leaned his back on the fuselage, "How much does the Force weigh?"

Kess huffed out a teenagers sigh of defeat at the ceiling. "Nothing."

Luke shrugged at her again, "So?" He watched her search for an argument against this plan, but Luke wasn't going to let her get out of it. This was too perfect. "You pick up rocks, don't you?"

She waved a hand at the ship and squealed at this insanity. "Rocks are one thing, but this is _nuts_."

The muscles in Luke's cheeks hurt from trying not to smile. He stepped over to her, drawing her stare from the X-wing, and spoke kindly. "If you will, for once, put as much faith in you as I do, you will succeed."

She looked into his eyes and her expression warmed. She smirked a little, a little embarrassed to ask, and turned to the collection of other grease monkeys. "Okay!" She clapped her hands and rubbed her palms together, "I need three volunteers that really, _really_ trust me." She busted out in a giggle as she said it.

The crowd started looking at each other. Bodies shifted weight from one foot to the other. As if someone said, 'volunteers please step forward' everyone stepped _backward_.

Kess' face turned pink with laughter at their reaction and turned back to him, thumbing over her shoulder. "Yeah-- this ain't gonna work."

"I'll do it." Luke looked in her eyes to say it. He turned to Ashten for the hand tools.

With Luke's trust, and the trust that the Jedi Master would catch the ship if she dropped it, Neilson stepped forward as well, "Me too."

Kess raised her brows at the Repair Manager and then, with determination, Ashten stepped up as well. The elfin woman started passing out the proper tools and dividing up the plan for a quick, six-handed job. Kess rubbed a hand over her eyes in disbelief and heard the whispers flow through the hangar like a tidal wave. Every warm body on the deck started gathering to watch the magic show.

Kess peeked at the cluttering crowd of army green jumpsuits and her sights fell on Luke's proud smirk. "I'm going to get you back for this," she threatened him.

Luke turned to the X-wing. "This makes us even for grounding my flight group." He sat on the concrete and scooted backward to the foot. "Just don't drop it on me."

Neilson was half-lowered beside him when he froze. He motioned the wrench at Luke, "You _will_ catch it if she drops it, right?"

Luke squinted at the man like he was crazy. "No, I'm not going to catch it. I'll be busy fixing it."

Ashten looked up at Neilson in panic and Neilson pointed to the first grunt he saw, "Get down here. Commander, why don't you—

Luke shook his head at Neilson. "She can do it by herself. I'm not going to give her a safety net."

A shudder seemed to hit everyone's shoulders at once. Kess glanced around at the imaginary wall everyone was standing behind, giving her, the X-wing, and the triplet on the pavement a giant bubble in a sea of greasy green canvas.

Three sets of shoulders hit the concrete with their heads pointing at the large broken foot from different directions. Neilson closed his eyes in silent prayer. Ashten tightened her grip on the wrench and gulped.

Luke lifted his head expectantly, "Well?"

Kess turned to the crowd, "Nobody say a word."

Heads shook vigorously in silence. Nobody was even breathing, much less talking. Kess took one last look at Luke head still in a spherical shape and closed her eyes. She brought every emotion to complete peace and sensed out to the X-wing. Its mass glowed dimly on the Force. The bodies underneath it glowed brighter. She took the time to focus her concentration on the entirety of the vessel and get a clear layout.

Luke watched the under-hull and could feel her get a tight grip on the steel. The Force flowing up through him as she pulled it up from the ground and created a large base under the X-wing's pointed body.

The metal began to shudder, grew to a disturbing rattle, and Rogue One began to rise.

A wide-eyed crowd watched Kess. Her face was expressionless and her hands barely hovered in front of her thighs. Beads of sweat dribbled down her temples. The X-wing rose several centimetres, paused a long moment, and rose upward again.

When it reached a steady hover at a half a metre, Luke fought a grin and whispered, "Go."

The three shimmied under the foot until the top of one head met with another's shoulder. Tools quietly clanked against the metal. They worked quickly, whispering back and forth for direction. Their whispers seemed to echo against the far away walls in the suspenseful silence of the crowd.

The muscles in Kess' jaw started to ripple and she forced herself to inhale slowly. The ounce of diverted concentration to do so reflected greatly in the X-wing's hovering position and it twisted slowly away. Kess realized it immediately and raised her chin to steady the craft again.

Somehow, Neilson and Ashten managed not to completely freak out. Neilson froze in terror as the foot drifted sideways out of his wrench's grasp. It had only moved a small space when it stopped again but that didn't make him fell any better.

Luke scooted up on his back more to adjust his reach under the foot's new position and whispered casually, "At least it wasn't coming _down_."

Ashten's hands went back to the craft in a fury.

Five seconds later, their whispers grew back to voices and Neilson pulled his hands and head from under the foot. "Got it." Luke was smiling as he rolled out beyond the X-wing. Ashten just got up and ran.

"Okay," Luke said, climbing to his feet. "Let it down."

The craft began to lower more unsteadily than it had risen. Her face was burning red with the need to breathe and her lips peeled away to show her teeth about to splinter from the pressure in her jaw. One foot touched before the other did and then Kess just let it go. The port side of the ship came down less than a centimetre but echoed through the pad with a rumbling thump.

Everybody stared.

Luke punched up both strong arms and hard fists with a loud shout. "Yes!"

That got the whole crowd going with wows and muttered chuckles surrounded by a mild applause of astonishment.

Luke stepped over to Kess where she just panted and stared at the ship. Her cheeks still flushed and wisps of hair clung to her temples with sweat. Like a muscle coming back from an unhealthy spasm, her mind was still trying to relax from the concentration.

Luke waited until she was ready to have a conversation. His pride in her swelled when the long lashes touched her pale eyelids. Smiling brown eyes leered up at him. "I don't care what you say," she panted. "That thing is massively heavy."

Luke allowed himself to give her a quick hug. Kess closed her eyes and soaked it up for the moment her face was against his shoulder, but created space between them as soon as he let go. Kess turned away and headed for the nearest chair so she could promptly collapse.

 


	34. LL2 34 Han's Deeper Digging

** LL2       34        Han's Deeper Digging **

**Entry # 259**

**I've been walking around in a strange daze all afternoon thinking the same words over and over again: That's my girl.**

**She felt more amazement about it than pride. During training today, she asked if I'd ever done the same thing and I told her about my X-wing drowning in the swamps of Dagobah. But I couldn't wipe the smile off my face when I told her about it. I just kept looking at her and thinking: That's my girl. That's my apprentice. And she's learning, and she's getting through this, and she's going to be my first Jedi Knight. And I won't be alone anymore.**

**She complains, but inside, she loves it.**

**Then just before we left the clearing, she reached over and combed my hair back from my eyes. She was whining about my haircut again and nagging at me that she couldn't stand it when my hair was in my face. I was sitting on the log and she was standing in front of me. She smelled like jet fuel, sweat, and mud. The Force coming from her tasted like strawberry soda. I know I should have told her to meditate. Hell, I should have meditated. But all I could do was sit there in defeat and think,**

**That's _my_ girl.              **

* * *

"Captain Solo?" Threepio waddled into the tech library and pulled Han's attention away from the holographic schematic. "There is an incoming message for you on secured channel Vev." His golden head cocked sideways. "It's marked 'private'."

Han pushed with his heels and rolled backwards into the terminal desk. "Thanks, Threepio." He turned his back to the droid as Threepio waddled back out the door. With a flip of the switch, the screen glowed red and gold with the giant symbol of Tatooine. Han punched in his code and folded his fingers together on the desktop.

A blue face appeared on the screen. The tiny antennas on his forehead were ears and the round suction cup-like hole was his mouth. Han thought of good old Greedo every time he spoke to the Rodian clan mate. It was a good thing Han saw Greedo die with his own eyes because he couldn't tell one Rodian from the next.

Han complained, "What took you so long?"

The Rodian's giant eyes seemed to turn downtrodden. His voice sounded like a cat meowing underwater as he spoke in his own tongue. "If you like, Solo, I can take this information elsewhere."

Han scratched his eyebrow in self-scolding of his own manners to someone that was doing him a favor, but refused to let himself apologize. "Don't bother. Nobody else would want it." Then he burst out with optimism. "C'mon, I'm paying you for this, aren't I?"

The chalky blue face nodded, "Speaking of payment..."

Solo punched in his credit chip into the slot with a whiney mutter, "Yeah, yeah, yeah."

Upon immediate receipt of the Alliance credits, the Rodian slid a brown datacard in his own slot and sent back the information, "You've always been a good customer, Solo, but sometimes I wonder about your strange inquiries."

Eagerly, the Captain slid a clean black card and downloaded the information. "Yeah, well I'm into some pretty weird stuff these days."

The Rodian chuckled in a high-pitched shriek of agreement that made Han wince. "Give Chewie a fair greeting." The Rodian quieted, "And may the Force be with you."

Han was already pulling out the precious card, "Yeah, you too." Anxious to see the goodies, he turned off the terminal and grabbed a datapad in the same series of movements. Then he sat back to get comfortable and switched the datapad on to glow dimly at his face.

He scanned the name and basic stats he'd already learned in the security check, and then, reading further...

Han frowned.

* * *

Luke led the hike up Toban Ridge and deep into the jungle beyond without talking for a long time. They weren't going anywhere she recognized. In a non-descript spot, he turned to her and ordered hard, "Tag."

Kess eyed him. "But we didn't bring the dud sabers."

His hilt ignited a green blade. "One… two… three…"

Kess was already backing up. "B-but, uh—

He looked directly at her. "Four... five... six..."

Kess turned on her heels and ran. She pounded through the brush and somehow managed to turn on her own saber along the way.

When Luke reached ten, he tightened his grip on the hilt for two extra beats, and ran after her.

He hated having to do this, but she had to learn to stay on her toes, no matter how he felt about her. He guided her flee in a particular direction, keeping up the chase and still staying far enough behind to prevent her from figuring it out too soon.

As her feet tore through the jungle, Kess scrambled for clues on what this was about. She could hear his footfalls behind, rapidly closing in on her. She glanced back to see how close he was when she crashed between the bushes to find nothing but _valley_.

Her feet skidded on the gravel all the way over the edge of the cliff. She dropped the lightsaber to grab hold of something. The amber blade sizzled through the wet air until it sliced through the canopy a hundred metres below. Terrified, she scratched at the mountain until she caught a protruding stone below the ledge. She clutched the rock and panic swelled to a cry of terror. Her feet scrambled against the side of the mountain only to have the dirt and rocks disintegrate under her boots.

Luke's tall body loomed as he stood at the ledge. He growled angrily down at her, "Get up!"

"Help me," she ordered.

His lifted his eyebrows. "No."

Kess cussed, clawing at the crumbling cliff, and realized he did it on purpose.

Gritting her teeth, she gave up the fight for a second and closed her eyes. Concentrating her senses on the mountain, she used the Force to glue the gravel together and then was able to use her feet to push her body up over the rock.

Luke saw her fingernails dig into the dirt ledge and stepped back to let her climb up by herself. By the time she pulled her body up and rolled onto her back, her fear and frustration had sobered. She closed her eyes and panted.

He asked quietly, "What did you do wrong?"

Kess whispered into the air. "I wasn't controlling my fear." She rubbed her eyes with the balls of her hands. "I was so scared of your real lightsaber that I wasn't paying attention to my surroundings."

Luke stepped over and offered her a hand. "Very good."

She took his hand and pulled herself up to stand.

"Don't do that again," he said, hovering his hand out over the cliff as he called through the Force to her lightsaber. "You scared the wits out of me."

 


	35. LL2 35 Rogue Group Party

** LL2    35     Rogue Group Party **

The grounding of Rogue Group was long overdue of the original estimate. Even though most of the X-wings were sitting perfect and clean in their parking spots, it was Neilson's decision that the ground would not be lifted until all twelve passed the new standards, but the few that still failed were only because of a delay in parts. There wasn't much more to do.

Kess could feel the morale wearing out and suggested they have their little Victory party early on account that they were practically done anyway. The Mash Pit cooked up dozens of patzias and pulled out four kegs of ale. Neilson and Kess pooled their personal resources to treat the entirety of Rogue Group to a private party.

Dozens of grease monkeys and wing nuts gathered around on the dance floor as Kess and Neilson stepped to the bar, picked up mugs, and raised it to their crew to toast a successful job.

Neilson gave a little speech. "Now I'm sure you guys are tired of getting stoned up there, so as soon as the CO2 filters are in, we'll give the Commander _permission_ to punch the GQ button again." Neilson leaned forward to see passed bodies to the man.

Sitting sideways in a barstool near the door, comfortable taking second stage so his repair crew could have their heyday, Commander Skywalker watched them all in pleasant silence.

Years ago when he put this team together, his first project was to get the pilots working as a team. The early Rebellion was so pressed for time that her fighter groups weren't squadrons as much as a collection of independent pilots flying around in a choreographed pattern. As soon as the pattern scattered in the midst of battle, the only thing squadron pilots had left in common was a color on their helmet. It was a mess.

He and Biggs bonded by flying around skyhoppers on Tatooine. He and Han bonded while running around pretending to be stormtroopers. He and Wedge bonded as new recruits and barracks roommates right here on Yavin 4. Were it not for those bonds, Luke would have never made it in and out of that blasted trench. (Sure, he used the Force too, but that was only the half of it.)

When they promoted him to Commander and offered him his own Group, Luke swore to run his differently. He didn't want a 'squadron'; he wanted a 'family'. He believed _everyone_ could live victoriously after the fighting was over, not just the hotshots and Force-users. They couldn't do that unless each and every one of them bonded with each and everyone else. All those maneuvers, all those histbat re-enactments, and all those General Quarters drills were designed to get these pilots to bond.

It worked. Rogue Group was awesome _in the sky_.

But they were a fumbling disaster on the ground.

All that changed when Kess showed up.

He noticed the change to when this ground had started. The further they got into it, the more his repair crew started acting like a team, like their own little family. Even if Neilson was in charge, Kess was the whisper behind Neilson's shoulder to prod the man how to get it done.

Now, as Luke looked around the room, he realized his pilots were scattered evenly amongst his repair crew. With all of them showing their personalities in civilian attire, holding mugs of ale, teasing each other, one lounging an elbow on another's shoulder, another pair holding hands... If he didn't already know who was who, he wouldn't be able to tell which half were the repair crew and which half were the pilots.

Not only did his repair crew now sizzle with the same synergy as his pilots, but pilots and repair now sizzled with synergy _with each other_.

Luke grinned at them all. This overhaul did far more than just fix his ships.

Neilson's speech fell to the comical replay of stories when Teak called out from the crowd, "So, Lendra, how many Force tricks did you use to pull this off?"

Kess looked at Neilson then to Luke as she thought about it, admitting. "Just one actually." Ashten reminded everyone when Rogue One had a loose landing foot. Pilots queried for details and comments spouted from the grease monkeys how crazy _that_ was. Someone joked for a Jedi to 'hand' him his beer that was hardly out of reach, and someone warned to "be careful what you ask for or that thing is going to end up in your lap!"

"It's not fair!" One whined out, "Not all of us got to see Rogue One fly without a pilot."

"You gotta show us something cool!"

Another complained, "I still haven't seen either one of those things lit up."

Kess looked at those looking eagerly at her and pursed her lips with consideration. Then her head rolled around to look guilty over at their Jedi Group Commander.

Luke met her gaze and flicked his brow. _How are you going to handle it?_

The entire Group watched the exchange and began to laugh.

Kess crossed her arms at her chest and looked back out at them. "Tell you what," she jerked her head over to Luke. "If you can get _him_ to do a parlor trick then I'll do one."

All eyes turned from Lendra to Skywalker.

Luke turned his eyes, curiously hopeful about which member of his command had grown enough stones to ask.

A wave of grumbles and pathetic chuckles rolled over the crowd. Shoulders turned away and bodies starting finding tables. Neilson turned to order the waiter droids to start serving out the food. Wedge turned to ask Ashten more about the Rogue One incident. Rogan started flirting with Jewie. The Group disbursed to their own cliques of conversation and proceeded to eat, drink, and be merry.

Kess snickered at how they all scurried away at the suggestion.

"Well played," Luke grinned at her.

Kess scooped up her mug and strolled over. "The last thing I need is for them to see you beat me up over some Jedi mistake."

"I wouldn't do that in front of them." Luke assured softly, gazing over the crowd, then added. "Wouldn't do it over that anyway."

She set her elbow on the bar behind her and watched the team enjoy themselves.

"You did it," Luke muttered. "I don't know how, but you did."

"Did what?"

"You got them to be a family." His brows knitted as he looked around. "Not just repair but pilots _and_ repair."

She shrugged. "Work hard; play hard," she quoted the old military adage. "Any group needs both to become a team."

Luke flopped his hand out, "But when did you _play_? This is the first party. Or is this just the first one _I_ was invited to?"

Kess threw it back at him. "You were invited. You just didn't go!"

He groaned, "Oh yes, the fencing blade versus the lightsaber." He wagged a finger, "For that, I almost _did_ beat you up in front of them."

"Yeah, but it didn't go down the way you think. I wasn't angry that night. I spilled a drink and lit it to make sure the stupid thing didn't fry."

His eyes slid over. "So how did the fencing blade get sliced?"

"Well." She shrugged her shoulders to her ears and smiled bashfully. "That part was just me being drunk."

Luke laughed tightly.

Kess whined in defense, "The only reason anyone was afraid of me that night is because they'd never seen the damn thing lit before."

"Oh, I doubt that." Luke grinned despite his tone. "They never saw a Jedi drunk before either." He sipped his mug and hooked his fingers in front of his chest again. Even if he was facing her to keep one elbow on the bar, his eyes kept going back out to the room to watch his crew play.

"Yeah, but that's _your_ fault." Kess tucked over a moment and kept her voice down, "I think I know why you got me doing the celibate thing right now, but _please_ don't make me go dry too."

Luke laughed; his eyes bright.

Kess raised her voice to complain, "I mean, come _on_! Sometimes you gotta turn to the dark side just so you _don't_ turn to the dark side!" Her voice grew to a cheer, "Work hard; play hard! We're Rebels for cryin' out loud!"

Hoots of agreement erupted all over in the dining room.

Kess spread her hands at him. "See?"

Luke shined with laughter.

Kess smiled big to watch him laugh, warmed to see him laughing in front of other people.

When his laughter calmed and the audience attention turned away again, Kess leaned a little closer to his shoulder with a mutter. "You want to know how to keep people being afraid of you? _That's_ _how_."

His eyes shifted to her a moment, then back to the crowd.

She muttered, "You think I would have pulled off this grounding if these guys were afraid of me? You think they'd be asking me to do parlor tricks?" She watched his eyes change to think on that. "They won't even _consider_ asking you."

"That's because I'm the Group Commander."

"No, Luke, it's because they've never seen you _play_."

Luke's eyes slid back to her, considering her words.

Kess' tone was friendly advice, "You want people to start treating you like a real person, start _acting_ like one." She pinched her fingers together, "Just a little bit."

Narrowed eyes considered her for a long minute of silence. Kess scooped up her mug and made ready to leave, gazing over the crowd to choose whom she would join. She glanced back at him to find him still staring at her with deep consideration of the thought.

Kess was unsure whether to be humored or worried.

"Okay." Both of his boots came off the foot rail to stomp on the floor simultaneously.

He set the mug aside as he eyed her, and though Kess understood his expression, but she didn't believe it until he got up from the barstool and unlatched his lightsaber from his belt. "Clear the deck," he called to those standing on the dance floor.

Kess stared at him in shock. One by one, conversations sputtered to a stop. Surprise and alarm swelled through the room. This crew saw that hilt daily, for years, but, for most, this was the first time they saw it _in his hand_.

Luke stepped backwards onto the dance floor and spun the hilt on the flat of his palm to catch it again. But, when she stood at the bar a beat longer with that splash of surprise on her face, he stopped his feet and spread his hands. His voice called over the simmering crowd with a smile of warning. "Don't throw it down like that if you don't want to play."

Necks stretched to see. Chairs scooted. Bodies nudged off the stage.

Kess could feel all eyes fixed on them again, but this time, Luke was doing it on purpose.

Kess pointed over her opposite shoulder at the bar behind her and crept out a meek joke. "It was more of a suggestion that you should get drunk."

Repair laughed loud to that.

He shook his head once. His dare was clear for all to hear. "Wouldn't help you win."

Flight crew crooned with applause.

This was only for show, Kess knew, but these were real blades, not duds. Luke knew full well this could turn fatal if she didn't respond to his intent with absolute precision. She turned on her senses to find he was deliberately radiating his own just so she could.

This wouldn't be any test of skill. This was just play. Good, old fashioned, Rebel _play_. Let them have a parlor trick. Let them see the blades lit. Let them see their Jedi were still human.

Just a little bit.

Kess kept his eyes as she set down her beer and pulled off her hilt.

Hands covered mouths. Conversation hushed to whispers. Necks crooned. Shoulders turned to watch.

 ** _SNAP-VROOM!_** Green light shot away from his hip.

Someone cussed.

Their eyes remained locked and as Kess stepped away from the bar, cranking her Force senses wide open to detect his every twitch and emitting everything back.

 ** _SNAP-VROOM!_** Amber light sliced through the air.

Blades hovered from hips, pointing at each other as they both walked backwards, ninety degrees around. For a moment, there was still a grin in his eyes at all this, but soon enough it vanished to nothing.

His voice whispered a common training exercise in her mind. _"One-two-three step."_

Kess understood and adjusted her space on the floor so she would have enough room to back up again.

Luke wrapped his other hand on his hilt, still shifted sideways.

Kess stood ready.

In the silent pause, they both expected someone to make some kind of wisecrack. It would have been appropriate. Luke gave it an extra beat so they could.

But no one spoke. There were a few whispers, sure, but most of that was profanity.

Like an earthquake rumbling from the core of the planet, the intent of action rumbled through the Force. In a flash of movement, as fast as the clanking of a socket wrench, Luke stomped forward and swung. Green blade crashed against the amber in rapid succession. One-right, two-left, three-right, and down onto her head where she blocked it with a horizontal blade and a deep back step—

And stopped cold.

Hoots and hollers, expletives and obscenities, blossomed from the crowd around them.

Grinning with a sudden shyness about it, Luke pulled away his blade from hers, stepped backwards, and switched it off.

As soon as he was clear, Kess lowered her blade and aimed it out at him again, sending out her own earthquake of intent.

Luke's eyes popped. He stepped back fast. His blade ignited again in time to block one-right, two-left, three-right and lift his horizontal blade with one arm to stop her sledgehammer.

Kess was smiling big when she stopped and Luke was chuckling at all this by now. Kess stepped back and they both switched off. Laughter. Applause. Toasts. Conversation erupted like a thunderstorm and someone turned on the music.

Luke moved hitched it back on his belt and turned to the bar, turning his back to everyone for a moment so they wouldn't see him meditate. Kess stepped up beside him, still hooking away her lightsaber, and leaned close to his shoulder as she picked up her ale. She whispered, "Well played."

Luke grinned over.

Kess grinned back. "Now get drunk," and turned away to join Neilson and Ashten for the rest of the party.

Luke watched her go. He would do nothing of the sort, and she knew it, but he understood her hint. He meditated only a quick moment then scooped his mug into his palm. Luke climbed off the barstool and turned to join Wedge and Teak at a table on the other side of the room.

 


	36. LL2 36 Dinner At The Solos

** LL2       36        Dinner at the Solos **

Kess straightened her new Jedi tunic and brushed off a piece of white lint from her black-shrouded shoulder. She rang the doorbell of the top floor apartment.

Threepio answered it. "Good evening, Lieutenant. Please come in."

Kess stepped into the hallway already hearing voices of loud tales and laughter in the back. Her eyes scanned over the white, curved, Alderaani-style furniture.

"If I may say so, the uniform turned out rather nicely."

Kess looked down at her new outfit, still trying to decide if she liked it. She looked like a man in it, but shrugged that off since her greasy jumpsuit wasn't that feminine either. Threepio led her down the hall to the living room.

The rambunctious crowd fell silent at her arrival.

Captain Solo was the first to speak, "Well, kid, looks like you've finally found yourself a sidekick."

Luke stood to the side of the room with his wine glass in his hand and own black Jedi uniform fitting comfortably over his build. His free hand went on his hip as he looked her up and down. "Looks good."

Chewie growled something from the couch.

Han chortled, "He said you look like a male."

Leia stepped up to her in a rust-colored jumpsuit and flowing ivory robe and straightened the shoulder of Kess' tunic. "Ignore them," she whispered and stepped back, looking her up and down. With a wink, the Princess turned to the dining room, "We'll make a Jedi out of you yet."

The bodies started moving to the table as Han raised his voice back to the tales of old times. "So anyway, about that _brilliant_ idea to dive headfirst into the trash…"

Leia shot her husband a look, Chewie hooted out in laughter and Luke grinned.

Kess sat gingerly in the chair across the table from Chewie. She blinked when Luke sat next to her, but quickly realized that there was no other place at the fine dining table for him to sit. Captain Solo and his furry partner-in-crime laughed about the adventures on the first Death Star while Threepio served them plates of a saucy Corellian meal. Solo kept calling Luke a 'kid' just to make him wince like a little brother. Leia watched her husband's rambunctious complaining with love in her brown eyes. Artoo rolled around the table with a platter of wine glasses on his head and twittering in complaint about Threepio's relentless whining during the event years before. Kess was able to get the trash compactor story out of them and listened attentively for any other tidbits of history she could pick out of the conversation.

Mostly, she just soaked up sights of Luke's easy smile as he enjoyed his family.

When dinner was over, Leia took Kess to the middle of the living room floor and began to instruct the different greetings to political leaders in the Council. The protocol lesson was the excuse to invite the Jedi Apprentice over for dinner in her new uniform. None of them would admit they were just anxious to see her dressed like a Jedi Knight for the first time.

At the little bar, Luke sipped on his wine from the stool and watched the women practice. It was the same set of lessons that Leia taught Luke, Han and Chewie years ago. He smiled to think that learning the details of protocol had become a kind of initiation into the family.

His eyes flicked to nothing in the air. Kess?... _Family_?

Surprised at himself, he looked back out to where she was listening to Leia with complete attention and respect. He absorbed the sight. Luke began to grin—

"I wanted to talk to you about something, Luke," Han muttered as he watched the women across the room.

Luke turned his head to him. He was so used Han calling him 'kid' that it drew more attention when Han addressed him by his real name.

Han spoke quietly so he wouldn't be overheard. He glanced again out to the living room floor before meeting Luke's gaze. "I did some checking up on your girlfriend."

Luke's patience twanged twice. He opted not to jump on Han's case about referring to her as his girlfriend for the sake of ripping his head off over trying to find something about Kess that Luke wouldn't like. His tone was clearly aggravated. "Why?"

Han brought the grass-colored drink to his lips, "I wanted to see if I could find a connection between her and that Mugwot Pon. See if that's what he's after."

Luke narrowed his eyes. "That's weak, Han. If Mugwot Pot is after Kess, then he's a bounty hunter hired by the Empire." He shook his head. "You wouldn't find a connection and you know it."

Han's voice was light but cocky. "That must be why I didn't find any." Luke's glare didn't faze him. "But I did find something interesting." He put his hand on one hip and swallowed down more of the slushy alcohol. "Something _Master Luke_ needs to know."

Luke watched his wine as he swirled it in the goblet, "I don't want to know."

Han watched the women more than two metres away practicing different bows to each other. Chewie strolled over and sat on the other barstool with a mumbled comment. Han took Chewie's glass with one hand and set datapad on the bar with the other.

Han's voice was quiet and tight. "Read it."

With a sigh of defeat, Luke picked up the pad and turned it on. Chewie growled a question at Han and the smuggler whispered back, "It's an _unofficial_ background check on our favorite Lieutenant."

Luke started shaking his head, "This was all in her security check, Han."

Han motioned with his finger. "Page down."

Impatient, Luke sighed and punched the button, eyes flicking across the page—

Luke froze.

"Told ya," Han said.

Luke's mouth fell open. His eyes fell closed. He shook his head.

Furry fingers tugged the datapad from Luke's hand. Chewie's wrist curled around in front of himself so he could read the thing upright. The big body shifted as he hooted a soft comment. His eyes peeked at Luke and furry shoulders half-turned to peek out Kess.

The bowing lesson in the middle of the floor had come to a screeching halt. Both women stretched brown eyes back to the men with concern.

Chewie set his hand on his hip and barked a hooting sentence at Kess.

Threepio began to help, "He said—

Han pointed hard over at the droid. " _Don't_ translate that!"

Chewie whipped his head back over his shoulder and griped at Han.

Han argued back. "Yeah. But that's between _them_!"

Luke stared at the floor.

"What?" Kess snapped.

Chewie sucked down his fresh drink in one swallow, slapped down the glass, and rumbled across the living room to the door, hooting pleasantries to Leia but he stopped between the two women and loomed over Kess.

He hooted something different.

Kess' wary eyes slid sideways up at the Wookiee. With his gray eyes and her Force senses, Kess didn't need anyone to translate that one, but Artoo did anyway.

_"You break his heart, I will kill you."_

Kess lowered her eyes with subservience to the alpha-male threat.

Everyone suspected, but nobody understood. If she only had the guts to say it out loud it would be easy to assure Chewbacca, or anyone else, that their worries were for naught. There was no possible way Kess could break Luke's heart if Luke never let her have any of it.

Kess shook her head at the floor. _And yet nobody gives a damn if he breaks mine._

The Wookiee gave the woman one last look of warning and lumbered out of the room to leave for the night.

Leia's voice was quiet and cold. "Threepio, will you please help Artoo plug in for a recharge before they leave."

Threepio's gears whirred as he waddled away. Artoo turned and rolled back, pausing by Luke's boot. He swiveled his head and whistled a soft query of support. Luke motioned him off with a flick of his downcast head. Threepio whirred away and Artoo rolled down the hall, leaving the humans alone in their little drama.

"Is anyone going to tell _me_ what I did wrong?" Kess called out, already aggravated over this.

Han leaned his elbows on the bar counter, "Don't yell at him. I'm the one who looked it up. I wasn't satisfied with the security check."

"Looked what up?" Leia challenged.

Kess only stared at Luke, looking for clues. Luke eventually lifted his eyes to stare back. He really didn't want to confront her about it at a family dinner, but deep in his heart, he wanted an explanation.

And he wanted it _now_.

The room went silent as Luke broke the stare and raised the datapad to his sights. With a low, depressed voice, he read aloud the entry that he didn't want to believe. "2.61.02.12 Accused: Kess Lendra, 76 Tusken Street, Mos Eisley Tatooine. Location of arrest: Corner of Market Square and Carrack Road, Mos Eisley. Crime:" He dropped his wrist to let the datapad hang and looked at her with disheartened shock, " _Prostitution_?"

Kess stepped forward with her lips drawn into a thin line and her arms folded stiffly at her chest. She stuffed back the first response that came to mind because they weren't in the clearing. She stopped her second response because they were in Jedi uniform. She halted her third response because they were at Han and Leia's place. She bit back the forth response out of habit and just gritted her teeth at him.

Leia scolded her husband from across the room. "Han, that was uncalled for."

Han met his wife's eye but said nothing.

Kess huffed. Here she was, mistaking a family dinner as an open-armed gesture of friendship with these people, and they drag a skeleton out of her closet for trial. Kess could not have been more insulted.

But she crumbled in Luke's stare. His irises faded to white. His eyebrows slanted with painful alarm. She ripped her eyes away in defense. "Street walking wasn't the crime I committed; it was the crime I was busted for."

Luke cocked his head. "And what crime did you commit?"

Kess threw back an angry smile. "It's kind of a long story."

Luke hissed back through his clenched teeth, "We have plenty of time to hear it."

Kess took one stomp and pointed at him aggressively, "Oh really? Then maybe you could explain how you knew Ben Kenobi. Or better yet, I'd love to hear the Darth Vader story! Do remember, _Master_ , I asked you first!"

Kess felt the air harden. Luke wasn't the only to stiffen at that, but that was hardly a surprise. It was no secret that the villain kidnapped Leia, tortured Han, and crossed blades with Luke. _Sure. You guys are heroes for surviving it. Fine. Here's your kriffing medal._ Kess was tired of walking on eggshells around these people.

Especially in _this_ uniform, she had a right to know the whole story.

Luke dropped his eyes and his chest heaved for air. Solo stepped out from behind the bar and went to his wife, but Leia stepped away from him and put up a palm for him to get away. She watched Luke press his lips together and set his wine glass carefully on the bar. She turned away from him, bursting with frustration at his continuing silence.

Her fingers dug deep into her bangs as she sighed in defeat. "I was a scout for a credit exchange. Okay? I had to clear the area so a friend could meet his rendezvous and trade Alliance credits for Imperial credits. Since possession of Rebel contraband was a felony at the time, I chose the misdemeanor." She hissed sharply. "All right?"

Luke closed his eyes with relief.

"Even if it was true, it's none of your damn business—

"Watch it!" Han barked at her this time. "I _can_ get Chewie back in here," he smiled angrily and shook his head, "but I don't need to."

Kess shouted at Han. "Break _what_ heart!" She flicked her arm violently in Luke's direction across the room and screamed with uncontrolled frustration. " _There's nothing in there_!"

Luke lifted his face at her unbridled hurt and the Force fingering out from her as dark wisps in all directions. He glanced at Leia who stood alone, keeping away from her husband, and was just now looking up to see the shade of emotion bleeding from this screaming apprentice.

Then all those black fingers of heartbreak and anger and insult sucked quickly back into her black uniform to a sick, poisonous, eye-of-the-storm kind of calm.

Kess took in a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and did a hard Right Face to square herself to Leia. "Minister, it's been a lovely dinner. Thank you for your hospitality." She bowed just like as she was taught.

Leia's mouth parted. She looked over at Luke with a silent order.

Luke took in a deep breath, and then another, only finding the guts when Kess turned for the door.

"Darth Vader..."

 


	37. LL2 37 Never Trust a Jedi

** LL2       37        Never Trust a Jedi **

…Kess' head whipped back to him before she realized what he said. She saw Leia close her eyes. She watched Han drop his back against the wall and stretch his head to the ceiling with a huff. Uncertain what was happening, her eyes went back to Luke.

Luke stared at her with a rippling jaw and careful words, "Darth Vader went by a different name before he turned to the dark side." He swallowed hard and forced himself to look at her when he said it. "His real name was Anakin Skywalker," Luke humbly admitted. "He was my father."

Her shock that Luke was telling her the story only intensified when he finished telling it. She narrowed one eye at him as though she hadn't heard him right. _This can't be right. That can't be true_. Eyes bulging, her mouth fell open. Kess shook her head… over and over and over again.

Luke swallowed a dry throat and locked his jaw shut.

She blinked and stepped clumsily backward into a living room chair, eyes unblinking at him until new tears welled up in her lashes.

Then her eyes flicked to Leia, Luke's _sister_ , the _Minister of State_ , and grew wider.

Leia stared uncomfortably at the carpet. Her arms folded tightly in front of her rust-colored jumpsuit. Solo stepped gently to the woman's side and wrapped his arms around her, but Leia stiffened at it.

Kess stumbled farther backwards, passing the chair, and looked again to Luke.

Luke licked his dry lips and whispered. "You can imagine why we're not ready to make that public knowledge yet." His eyes pleaded back at her. "And I hope you can understand why I was reluctant to tell you."

A tear splashed on her cheek. She placed her palm on her forehead and turned with indecision. "Um," her voice cracked. She swallowed a dry mouth. "I'm… gonna go home now." Before a commanding word could stop her, she dashed to the hallway.

The door hissed shut.

Luke closed his eyes and rubbed his brows with thumb and forefinger. His heavy sigh quivered in his chest. "I think I hate him more for this than anything else."

Leia turned to him with a command, "Go after her."

Luke barely shook his head, "She needs to cool off."

Han stepped over and put a palm on the wet bar, "What she _needs_ is to talk to _you_."

Luke hissed back at him, "I thought you didn't like her?"

Han squared his shoulders. "I don't _trust_ her." He motioned to the chair the woman had bumped into, "especially when she's got a lightsaber right now."

Leia shouted across the room, " _Go after her_!"

Luke met his sister's stare and looked away again. His motions quickened, "Send Artoo home in about an hour." He rubbed the sweat from his palms to the sleeves of his pants and stood nervously. He took five steps to the door and stopped.

Han and Leia watched him turn around, helpless. "What do I say?"

Leia went to him gently. "Luke, it's time to tell her the truth."

He winced painfully, waving his arm at the bar, " _I just did!"_

Han crossed his arms, "The truth about _you_ , idiot. Not _him_."

Luke looked at Han pathetically. He started and then his eyes saddened again, "I _can't_."

Leia felt her brother's frustration oozing out from his practiced control. She touched his arm and insisted again, "Luke, go talk to her."

Luke roughly combed his fingers in his tousled hair and moved swiftly out the door.

He paused in the hallway to wring his hands, then trotted to the elevator. He thought to fetch his speeder but knew that he'd never talk her into getting in. The chilly night breeze brushed his cheeks when he came out of the building. She was nowhere in sight, but he could sense her around the corner and down the street already. He realized he might lose her—

Luke skipped into a full run.

His chest pounded. The wind felt like ice on his ears as he rounded the corner of the building. He saw her, blocks away and walking swiftly farther. Her arms were pulled in tight at her chest. She jaywalked across the street to the footpath through a small patch of jungle.

Luke ran faster, "Kess!"

Her feet sped up. Her arms unraveled to so she could tuck to run down the wide footpath.

Luke gritted his teeth and ran faster but with all his strength in the Force, all his medals and political power, his feet just wouldn't move fast enough. His legs were longer, but hers were quicker. He gained on her too slowly for his own patience.

He ran close enough for her to hear his boots pounding into the moistened grass and she bolted. "Get away from me!"

Luke shouted a commander's order, "Lendra! Stop!"

The trees loomed over her when she instinctively followed his order. And he could feel the beat in time when she kicked her own butt for doing so. Streetlights twinkled from the other side of the jungle patch and sent shadows over the path and her.

Luke's feet ran until he came within a few metres of her but just as he was beginning to slow, an amber light ignited in the shadows and the long blade pointed straight at him.

Luke skidded to a halt, panting through parted lips. He saw her tear-stained cheeks illuminated by her lightsaber's glow. He took a step closer, craving to ease her pain and his guilt.

The blade straightened, pointing directly at his chest. "Get away from me," she whispered roughly.

Luke still didn't know what to say. He didn't know what to do, what to think, or how to feel. The midnight blue of her pain flooded his senses. "No," was as he could say.

"I don't want to hear your explanations or your apologies," she said furiously. "You lied to me." She sucked in a quivering breath. "You let me trust you _knowing_ you were hiding the truth... I'm not even sure I want to hear your terribly long story anymore."

He spread his hands and stepped up until the blade nearly touched the fabric of his black tunic. "Kesselia, don't fight me about this," he whispered. "Please. Put it away."

She boomed out a challenge, her fist shaking her blade in front of his chest. "YOU DRAW YOURS!"

Luke swallowed hard. He wasn't about to draw his lightsaber on her, but he wondered what else he could do if she finally let loose her anger and swung at him. "You're upset and you have every right," he insisted, "but this hate you feel for Vader will turn you to the dark side if you don't pacify it."

She stepped backward, waving the blade in sarcasm, "Oh! Just what I need right now. More twisted wisdom from Master Perfect!"

Luke bit his tongue and cursed himself for his approach. Pain filled his heart at the realization of the monster her created.

She flapped her free hand against her thigh. "Well, you were right! Three, four. You win. You're father's worse than mine."

 _Poetic justice_ , he thought. They already told him what to do, _tell her how you feel,_ but he didn't know how to say it. He didn't know if it would do any good. He didn't know if it would be stepping over that line that Obi-Wan stopped him from crossing.

But what he _did_ know, he inhaled deeply to draw up the courage to say it out loud, "I don't want to lose you."

Kess laughed painfully at him. "You've got a real problem with this Jedi peace of yours! Your attitude changes from a military hero to a bible-thumping monk as fast as a power switch." Another tear dribbled down her cheek, "And now you don't want to _lose me_? You just keep me around so you have someone to beat up on! I'm just your stupid little sidekick, Luke!" She waved her free hand in the air. "No matter what you say, I'm supposed to obey. No matter what you do, I'm supposed to _find my peace_ and understand!"

Luke shook his head weakly, "No—

"I'm not doing this anymore!" She screamed, "I'm exhausted!I've had it! No more tag and no more lies." She switched off her saber and tightened her grip on the hilt. "No more 'it's a long story.' No more, 'I'll tell you when you're ready'." Her chest heaved as the crying flowed uncontrollably. "No more 'mistakes'."

Luke shook his head at her, as speechless as he was helpless at what was coming. Her acidic whisper sliced the heart completely out of his ribs.

"And no more training." She threw the hilt at him. "I quit."

Her lightsaber thumped on the ground behind him.

The silence of his shock turned up the volume of the chirping crickets and twittering night birds. The statement knocked the air right out of Luke's chest. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't speak.

Kess decided she'd given him plenty of time to respond, then pivoted on her heels. She turned her back to him and stormed away.

All her peace and serenity crumbled like a brick building in an earthquake. Her feet sped up as though the distance from him would ease the pain, but even at a full run again, she couldn't control the crying. She shot out of the jungle path and, in seconds, was out of sight.

Luke tried to run after her but only made it a few steps before his strength weakened. His legs buckled beneath him and he fell to his knees on the soggy ground. The wetness of the recent rain instantly soaked through his pants to his shins. Silence boomed in his ears. Frogs croaked at him and the shadows over the footpath darkened even the corners of his soul.

He threw back his head and shouted out his pain into the stars and hoped his father would hear him. "DAMN YOU!"

His voice echoed against the stone buildings and drilled a hole directly into her chest as she ran as fast as she could to base. The tears from the death her mother flowed as thought he pain were fresh. Her father had warned her. As much as she hated to admit it, her father was right.

Never trust a Jedi.

 


	38. LL2 38 The Morning After

** LL2 38 The Morning After **

The black sky began to lighten outside the barracks window and Luke sighed with slow relief that the night was finally over.

Clods of mud littered the drink table from his boots. Two lightsaber hilts lay side by side near his feet. He lounged in the center of his couch, his legs crossed out in front of him, forearms thrown over his head, and fingers blindly fidgeting a datapad behind his own skull so he wouldn't have to look at it anymore.

**What not to do while training a (female) Jedi Apprentice.**

It didn't take long to read the whole thing over again,

**Entry #1: Don't burst into her room without first verifying she's wearing pajamas.**

So he read it over again,

**Entry #2: Don't offer to dress her yourself.**

And over again,

**Entry #21: Don't let her build a lightsaber until she's ready to use it.**

And again,

**Entry #91: Don't assign her to your military squadron.**

Again,

**Don't allow her to flirt.**

He searched every word in every entry trying to figure out where he went wrong.

**Don't tell her...**

Only now, with peppermint eyes staring at the morning sky,

**Don't confuse...**

and his chest sapped of confidence,

**Don't touch...**

did he realize the pattern,

**Don't feel...**

that was there all along.

**Don't...**

Luke rubbed his chapped lips together and sniffed once.

Where he went wrong wasn't in there. Because what wasn't in there was where he went wrong.

He hated Anakin all over again for all those crimes that hurt so many people. He hated Obi-Wan all over again for all those facts he should have told Luke from the start. He hated being a Group Commander. He hated this training. And he hated that he was too practiced and too tired to hate anything anymore.

Luke swallowed hard and brought his arms down from his head, dropping his hands and the datapad to his lap. His shoulders slumped. He angled his head to thumb beyond the last entry, considering what to write next...

What to write _last_.

He still couldn't tell her the whole truth on the slim chance she'd come back. For all intents and purposes, he still had to be a Jedi Master. He knew what he had to do. He had to do what Yoda would have done, what Obi-Wan would have done, even though it felt like he was slicing off the rest of his arm and just handing it to her.

_Do it._

Luke sucked in a quivering breath and touched on his peace before he let the air back out.

_Feel it._

His jaw tensed into solid stone as he fought himself on it.

_Let it._

But he wasn't willing to cut off his apprentice without giving her some kind of solid proof that there was more to the months of grueling training...

_Say it._

...than training.

_Just say it._

Luke poked one index finger on the rounded keys to hunt-n-peck it.

**Don't fall in love with her.**

He stared at the letters, dumbfounded for a long minute—

With a huff, he dropped his head back on the couch and tossed the datapad roughly away. It slid across the table and clanked. Luke glanced up to see what it hit.

The little machine bumped his standing lightsaber hilt so hard that it toppled over and knocked hers over too.

* * *

Kess' eyes opened to the darkness at exactly oh five hundred, but she lay there in a huddled ball under the woolen blanket with no intentions of getting out of bed. She stared wide-eyed out the window where dawn glowed pale blue and rich orange into the night sky. A fresh tear dribbled down her temple and dissolved into the wet pillow.

Last night, she stormed into the barracks calling him every name in the book. The girlies gathered with concern and tried to get her to talk about it, and Kess really wanted to, but something inside wouldn't let her reveal a secret that wasn't hers to tell. Instead, she locked herself in her room and cried herself to sleep.

She swore it was time to get her own life back. She would sleep in every morning and race in late for muster.And it would be _Gold Group_ Muster. Just the thought of a few minutes in that managers' office to clean out her desk made her blood boil. If he didn't approve a transfer, she would take the matter all the way to the Chief Commander if she had to. She would sign back up for Lokey's fencing class and she would ask Wedge out on a date just to _piss him off!_

"Good mo—

Kess made a quick gesture in the direction of the alarm and the sweet voice went silent. Then she looked at her index finger in the darkness, scolding it for its subconscious behavior.

She blew up at her bangs and finally admitted that last night's hopes of switching back to her old life were just a bunch of bantha fodder. Luke would be banging down her door in short order to get her to find her peace and meditate. She would most certainly be summonsed to Minister Organa Solo, Daughter-of-Vader's office, to get yelled at. She didn't even want to _think_ about what the Wubak of GNN was going to do with this. As soon as word got out that Big-Man Skywalker's first apprentice had walked out on him, the press would smear it across the NewsNets as bad as they did the Hutt Trials.

Now, facing her father about her training was completely out of the question. Her only hope was to shed all the Jedi-ness from her personality and go home pretending nothing happened. She could change her hair and say that the lady he saw on the vid was some other chick that just looked like her. Kess rolled on her back and groaned at the pathetic idea. There was no way around it: her father was going lose his lid over this.

At least he wouldn't cut her hand off.

Kess swallowed hard. She knew she had to face Luke about this. She would have to explain valid reasons for canceling her training without throwing a temper tantrum in the process.

And if he wasn't going to let her quit, the only way she would get out of the constant brow beating would be to resign her commission and leave the Alliance, and all it's rebellious glory, behind her.


	39. LL2 39 Muster Room Fight

** LL2       39        Muster Room Fight **

Kess hid in the droid locker before muster and walked into the giant room at the last minute, _after_ Luke had already stepped up to the podium. She wouldn't let herself look at him as she moved to the front row where the managers always collected by the side door. She tried her damnedest to ignore his monotone voice and fought chill in her shoulders about Luke's secret blood relation. She stared unyielding at the dingy tile of the stage directly in front of her.

In her mind, she played with words on how to approach him about it, but realized he would probably pull her aside before she narrowed in on a strategy. She could see him out of the corner of her eye, leaning tired elbows on the scratched podium. Instead of the khaki uniform, she imagined a flowing black cape and polished helmet.

His voice didn't break out of the monotony to say, "That is all." But he stayed there to watch Rogue Group filter out the back doors and get to work. Kess shot out of her chair and marched to follow them all out—

"Sit down," he ordered quietly.

Kess stopped in her tracks and sighed to retain her patience and temper. A few more bodies flowed around her in the aisle. No one noticed anything was wrong.

"Please," he said quietly. It almost came out like a question.

Kess turned on her heels in the aisle and clasped her hands behind her hips, staring hard at the wall behind him in bold defiance as the echoing voices faded completely out to the pad.

Luke watched the bodies dribble out the door and motioned to the last person to shut it behind her. Neilson poked his head back in from the side door and, caught suddenly at Luke's expression, nodded sheepishly and closed the door behind him.

The thump of the closing doors echoed in the big empty room.

Luke wiped a palm over his face and let out a sigh. He gave himself a quick moment to figure out how to begin and read her body language. He pressed his mouth, pushed away from the podium, and jumped off the short stage toward her.

Her eyes darted to the ground. Her throat was dry, "I needed to talk to you anyway, Commander."

Luke cut her off. "Don't call me 'Commander'." He pulled the blue and silver rank insignia off his collar.

Her glare bore into him. "I'm sure as hell not gonna call you 'Master'."

Luke met her stare just as hard, pulling off his Jedi pin. "Don't call me that either." He watched her expression as he yanked off his lightsaber and then slid her lightsaber out of the inside pocket of his khaki jacket. He turned back to the stage and unloaded every symbol of rank from his person.

Kess' face went irate as soon as she realized what he was doing. "I hope you don't think pulling another 'mistake' to get my grandfather to show up again is going to fix this."

He smiled a little at the idea. "No." He stepped to her and reached for her collar.

She gritted her teeth and slapped his hand away.

Luke's arm froze in the air and he let out an impatient sigh. "Fine," he snapped. "You take it off." He took a rocking step backward.

Kess drilled her eyes into him and ripped the Lieutenant dots off her collar, uncaring that the clasps dribbled down inside her shirt. She threw it roughly across the room where it clattered against a far away chair. Kess folded her arms at her chest and faced him with a dare.

Luke's eyes stretched his disappointment at her immaturity as he turned back to the short stage. "You are correct though, I _am_ taking this off the record." He sat on the edge of the stage directly in front of her and looked her in the eye. "I realized that one of my dumbest mistakes was trying to pretend that our three different relationships were going to stay separated."

Her chin rocked back and forth. "Well, I guess you don't have to worry about that anymore, do you?"

Luke set his hands beside his knees and locked his elbows. He needed to find out what, if anything, changed in her attitude since last night. "Why not?"

She spoke firmly, "You are not my Jedi Master, and by the end of this conversation, you won't be my Commander either."

He wasn't expecting this. "You want out of Rogue Group, too?"

"More than you can imagine," she said obnoxiously, rocking forward on her feet to yell at him. "And I'm kind of stuck because you've got the high command wrapped around your little finger. I'd have to take the matter all the way up to the Chief Commander before I could reach an unbiased party, and I'm even not sure that she would be unbiased about this." She watched his eyes narrow at the floor. "So I've got two choices. And if I can't Persuade you to let me go back to Gold Group," her words iced over, "you can keep those kriffing dots."

Luke sighed through his nose and raised his chin. He hoped that her continued presence in Rogue Group would be his link to pull her gently back into the Jedi fold, but assigning her here was a mistake from the beginning. "Don't resign on my account." His fingers shrugged. "The training I assigned you here to learn is all taught and done with. As soon as you guys clear my ships, I'll approve a transfer back to Gold Group." He watched her eyes dart to him in shock. "Is that fair?"

Kess gritted her teeth again, but she nodded. "Fine." That was too easy.

He kept her eyes a long moment, then broke the silence with a loud clap and rubbed his palms together. "So we've gotten that taken care of. I'm not your Commander and I'm not your Master." His voice dropped to a whisper. "Two out of three."

Kess dropped her gaze to the ground and rubbed her lips together.

His throat tightened. "Now what?"

"I go about my merry way," she set her jaw with borrowed pride, but tears welled up in her eyes. "See if I can put my life back together—

Luke shot of the stage, "You're a half-trained Jedi Knight, Kess! You can't just drop that like a hot rock!"

"Well my options are kind of limited!" she yelled back. "I can already see my father's reaction if I tell him I'm in training to become Lady Vader, Mistress of the Sith!"

Luke jerked back with a wrinkled forehead.

She smiled through a teary whisper. "But I never had to worry about that in the first place, did I?"

Luke calmed his nerves and calmed his voice, "Darth Vader was responsible for millions of deaths, Kess. I know how you feel."

She coughed with incredulity, "Oh, you _do_ , huh?"

He shrugged at her, "How do you think _I_ felt when _I_ found out?"

The fury in her eyes dwindled. She hadn't thought about that.

"That's what the dark side can do to a person," he stressed softly. "Anakin Skywalker was a good man. I don't even know what turned him." He paused to inhale, calming his impatience, "You wanted to know why he saved my life on the second Death Star, well the Emperor was going to kill me if I didn't turn and _Anakin_ didn't want to see his son die. All right?" He spread his hands. "I know not many people believe me and I don't expect you to believe me either, but he _did_ turn back to the light side before he died!"

Her mouth opened in angry cynicism, "I can't believe you're defending the bastard!"

Luke exploded, "BLAMING HIM IS NOT GOING TO BRING YOUR MOTHER BACK!" He paused for a moment, surprised at his own boiling temper, but spit his own frustrations at her with a waving arm. "All it's going to do is fill you with hate and turn you to the dark side too!"

She screamed back at him, "IF I'M NOT A JEDI, I CAN'T BE ON EITHER SIDE!" She balled her fists and stomped up to his face. "So, I can _hate_ him all I want! And I can _hate_ you!" Her screaming echoed in the vast emptiness of the room. "I can laugh when I want to and I can cry when I want to! Us _mere mortals_ are _allowed_ to feel their emotions! I miss that, dammit! I want to be able to throw temper tantrums when I'm pissed and act on impulse when I'm happy!"

She leaned deeper toward his face and lowered her tone to an insinuating hiss, "Oh, but Jedi Knights can't do that, can they? Jedi Knights have to make sure that nothing bothers them and nothing feels good and nothing _hurts_."

Luke stared at her tearing eyes. "Kesselia, you have no idea how much this hurts."

She tightened her jaw and her eyes saddened even more. _Now_ he decides to start being human? She wasn't going to let his words soften her this time. She stepped away and huffed in frustration, convincing herself that she had every right to be mad.

He continued quietly, "You didn't quit because of Vader. You only quit because I didn't tell you about it sooner."

She jerked her chin at him, "Did the Force tell you that? Or did you figure that one out on your own?"

He leaned toward her and raised his voice again, "If you knew that he was my father then you wouldn't have trained with me at all!"

Kess bellowed back at him, "And for good reason!"

Luke stomped over, growling out his words with tight teeth. "What he did was NOT my fault!" He paused when he realized that the hostility was flooding over his peace, but continued anyway. "It's NOT my fault he's my father! And it's NOT my fault your father taught you to hate him so much! That hate is eating you inside out! If you don't control it you will turn and then you'll bejust like him!"

She yelled back at him, waving her arms at her sides, "Yeah? So what? That's none of your business! It's _my_ life! It's _my_ hate! I'm not going to stick around so you can tear me to pieces! So you can order me around all day and beat the snot out of me all night! S-so you can lie to me and let me in on these little secrets of yours one by one!" Her chin began to wrinkle, "Go find some other Force-sensitive slut who'll put up with it because it sure as hell won't be me!"

Luke caught his breath and watched her angrily turn away. He took a step back and lowered his chin. His tone darkened with insinuation. "This isn't about Vader at all is it?"

 _Don't_... 

Kess cussed under her breath and turned her back to him. She pulled her arms to her chest and glared at the floor.

"It never was," he muttered, setting his hands on his hips.

 _Don't_... 

He angled his chin to try and face her down, "Kess, I wish I could tell you what you want me to say—

She put her palm in the air to stop him there. " _Don't_ bother."

He stared hard at her, not willing to use the Force right now, but still willing for her to figure it out. _Come on, Kess. You gotta know already. I know you know already!_  

She read his expression clear as day and he could see the change in her eyes. She shook a clawed hand in the air at him. " _Don't_ pretend you want to 'say' anything! _Don't_ sidestep it anymore by telling me to wait until training's over! And it's too late now to do the respectable thing and just admit _there's nothing kriffing there_!"

Pleading to stop this, Luke lifted his hand in the air to gesture—

Kess jumped back. "Don't touch me! Don't look at me! Don't talk to me!" Her resolve crumbled to tears under his painful stare. She hid her face in her hand, wiping tears from her red cheeks.

"Don't quit," he whispered with his stomach imploding.

Kess buried her face in her palms. "Don't look at me like that!"

"Don't quit," he repeated. "Do it different."

He waited until her eyes found him before he turned the whole thing upside down.

He shrugged, "Quit Rogue Group. Quit coming to the clearing. Quit running the grinder." He met her eyes and licked his tight lips to admit it. "Quit me."

Her eyes fell closed. A new tear splashed on her cheek.

"I'm the villain here, right? So quit _me_." He shook his head. "But don't quit _this_." He burst out, "You're not a quitter, Kess. You wouldn't have made it this far if you were!"

"How far am I?" She whispered tightly, "You haven't let me in on that secret either."

"Hell, I don't know!" He choked a sick smile and slapped his palms on his sides. "I'm making all this up as I go along."

Kess dropped her eyes back to the floor.

He didn't want to do it this way, but it was the only way he was going to get her to finish her training without breaking the rules. He sucked in a deep breath and plugged through. "I've taught you everything I know about _how_ to use the Force. You just need the experience on _when_ to use it, and _why_ to use it. You need practice and you need discipline and _you don't need me_ to teach it to you. You know what you need to do. You know what you need to work on."

Her chin wrinkled and shook.

"You don't need me to finish your training," he insisted, "But you need to finish your training if you want me— (blink) –t-to be anything other than your Jedi Master."

Brown eyes flicked over. Blue eyes flicked down.

Kess rubbed her lips with indecision.

Luke reached up and pulled two datacards from the breast pocket of his khaki jacket as he stepped to face her, standing closer than usual.

She couldn't look up.

Luke brought his hands up between them with the datacards. His thumb tapped the first. "This is everything I know about Ben Kenobi." He brought it up to her chest and tucked it into the angled pocket under nametag that she never bothered to zip. "It isn't much," he admitted, then whispered to stress in defense. "And I _don't know_ why it contradicts what your family told you."

As if feeling the weight of the information, her palm went to her collarbone and pressed against the card in her pocket. Luke rubbed his lips together for a long moment until her palm dropped from her breast. He swallowed hard and simply pinched the other one in his fingers between them, label up.

 ** _What not to do while training a (female) Jedi Apprentice_**.        

Kess' shoulders expanded with a breath of anxiety when she recognized it.

He shook it in the air between them as she stared at it. "I'm not perfect, Kess. Every mistake that's in here is because _I_ made that mistake." He caught himself and struggled with his wording. "And maybe they aren't all mistakes in other settings, but this was _Jedi Training_." His fingers gripped the card so hard his thumb turned white. "And it always will be _until_ _you finish it._ "

Slowly, her hand came up to take the card from him until her thumb and fingers pinched down on its opposite side.

Both heads bowed, both eyes watched, both were sharply aware: His hand pinched one side of the card, her hand pinched the other side, both sets of fingers deliberately keeping away from the other hand, leaving only enough space on the label to see the word that separated everything: **Apprentice.**

Luke let go.

Kess exhaled out an open mouth like she just lost her grip on a cliff, helpless to catch the edge again as it slipped from her reach.

He turned and walked away.

He stopped at the stage with his back to her, hooked his lightsaber back where it belonged. Broad shoulders squared as hands put his insignia back on his own uniform.

Her throat filled with terror about trying to finish her training alone. Until this very moment, she didn't realize how comfortable it was to have his wisdom and strength to lean back on. Her lips quivered to find words, to find her voice. Wide-eyed, she watched him tuck his jacket down to straighten it out and turned farther away to head for the side door.

Marching away, he glanced once over his shoulder but his eyes didn't try to find her. "So let me know if you change your mind, all right?" He said it as easily as though she had turned him down for a business lunch and marched quickly to the door.

"L—

But he was already gone.

 


	40. LL2 40 Claymore

** LL2       40        Claymore **

Luke sat at his desk and punched keys on his terminal but soon was closing his eyes to meditate secretly. All that did was amplify what was happening in his own broken heart. He looked at the wall and opened his senses to her. Her anguish radiated in there. Indecision shot out like black spikes. She loved him and she hated him. And there was nothing he could do about either one.

The buzz of the managers' office carried on and Luke tried to bury himself in work. He muttered to Neilson for the parts ETA and asked Wedge for the watch schedule. Both men stood over his desk talking business as usual and Luke worked to focus on what they were saying.

Luke could feel it coming when Kess burst in from the side door. 

Neilson glanced up. "Hey, K— Whoa. Are you okay?"

Kess stepped between the shoulders of Wedge and Neilson. With one hand, she put down a datacard face down on his desktop with a snap. "Don't want it anymore," she hissed.

Luke chomped his jaw shut and closed his eyes.

Wedge and Neilson exchanged glances.

She then wagged the other one in the air. " _This_ one," she slid the datacard with his Kenobi notes back into her breast pocket. "I should have been told from the start."

Luke opened his eyes at her. The Force print in front of his desk throbbed purple and black like a giant blood blister on the verge of eruption.

She looked him in the eye as she symbolically placed her hilt sideways on the desk in front of his folded hands. "And I think you'd better hang on to this for a while."

Luke sucked a breath through his teeth, swallowed hard, and nodded.

"Whoa," Wedge muttered. "Wait a second."

"Kess, come on." Neilson tried to motion her back to the muster room. "Let's go take a break, eh?"

She put her palms up to them all. "I'm going to supply," she said sharply.

Neilson watched her with a sigh of concern, shaking his head. "For what?"

Luke weaved his fingers together on his desk and stared down.

"I don't know! Prop wash!" She snapped. "Is it so hard to believe I just need a break from the man?"

"Let her go." Luke plucked the lightsaber off his desktop and secured it to his own hip.

It was a good sign that she turned in the lightsaber. It meant she knew how dark she was becoming and a thread of light still tethered her from going completely over. What she needed right now, more than anything, was time away from him.

He murmured to them again as she disappeared out the door. "Let her go."

* * *

Luke flared with impatience when he got the order for a meeting in the Minister of State's office. It didn't take thruster science to figure out what _this_ meeting was about. Thankfully, the only people in Leia's new office were Leia and Han, so Luke didn't hold back his own frustration. "I _told_ you she needed time to cool off!"

Leia came around from behind her desk. "What happened?"

Han lounged in silence in one of the couches, fidgeting a datapad on his knee.

"She quit." Luke shrugged, defeated. Then sighed heavily as if still trying to accept it. "She quit."

As he strolled away, the door opened again and a new arrival glided in like her feet were on rollers. Chief Commander Mothma stood front and center of the entry floor as though she knew this meeting wouldn't take long.

Luke gave the Chief Commander a look, pressing a weak grin, and stepped back to huff another sigh of defeat.

Leia's voice was soft and supportive. "Where is she now?"

Luke set his hands on his hips and closed his eyes. "I don't know."

Leia shouted an impatient order, "Well, use the Force and find her!"

Luke spat back with an equally loud whine, " _You_ use the Force and find her!"

Leia closed her mouth.

Luke waved a hand and yelled at them all. " _I am not omnipotent_!"

Leia lifted a brow at him. "Do you need a hand?" When he didn't answer right away, she offered again, "Do you want me to talk to her?"

"Not unless you're ready to be her next Jedi Master," he crooned. "The one thing that's going to bring her back into the fold is the one thing _I can't do_."

"Why can't you?" Mothma asked.

Luke huffed hard and stepped back, meeting the Chief Commander's eyes across the room.

"Luke?" Leia queried.

He spat out a whine, "Because the _one_ time I came close, my leash was yanked by a dead Jedi Master."

Han's face whipped back with a grimace of surprise.

"I've got bigger and more powerful people to answer to than _you_ , Leia," he shouted with sick laughter at it all. "You think Vader was bad? Imagine Obi-Wan Kenobi's face when he catches you making out with his granddaughter."

Han chuckled low and dropped his head back on the couch. Leia dropped smiling eyes to the floor. Luke stepped back farther until he bumped into Leia's desk and rubbed his face with his palms, bracing for the impact of Chief Commander Mothma's reaction to that.

But the part to which she reacted was entirely unexpected.

" _Granddaughter_?"                      

Luke set his hands back on his hips. "Apparently. But it doesn't matter now."

Mothma's chin turned with a mysterious squint. "Master Kenobi had no children."

All looked up. All looked over.

After a moment, Luke pointed out. "Obi-Wan lived two decades after the Order was slaughtered."

Mothma half-turned to think on it. "Enough time for a _daughter_ perhaps. Not enough time for a granddaughter."

Luke did the math and gritted his teeth, ready to cuss the ghost out right here and now.

Leia covered her open mouth with a cupped hand.

Han chuckled and shook his head. "You old scoundrel."

"But I don't think he would've." Mothma added, her eyes in the air to think on it.

Han lifted his head. "Why not?"

"Human Jedi were celibate," she pointed out as if this was common knowledge.

Luke blinked again, " _Celibate_?" He gestured both hands in the air at the Rebel leader he'd known for years. "You wait until _now_ to let me in on that?"

Mothma grinned. "With respect, I didn't know what you didn't know."

Luke rubbed his eyes with thumb and forefinger.

"And if Master Kenobi didn't tell you either during those two decades," Mothma continued, "I'd say you need to take a second look at his true intent."

Luke stared at the carpet.

Mothma stepped up and continued, friendly and firm. "Master Skywalker, we cannot have a strong government without a strong Jedi Order. The only way we can prevent trained Sith from infiltrating our republic is for a trained Jedi to let us know _who they are._ "

Luke met her eyes.

"I have absolute faith that you can build a New Jedi Order, but I also accept that you cannot build it to the exact replica of the one that was slaughtered. Just as I will not be able to rebuild the Alliance in the exact replica of the Old Republic." She spread her hands. "Nor should I. It was broken. And the Jedi Order was broken. Chinks in our political armor. Chinks in the Jedi Order. _That's how Palpatine did it_."

Luke lifted his chin and absorbed all this.

"I am absolutely certain that during those two decades of exile, Master Kenobi thought long and hard about where those chinks were."

Luke nodded thoughtfully.

"Build it the way you see fit," she ordered him, turning to leave, her words icing over. "And tell Master Kenobi to stay out of it."

* * *

Kess had every right to be angry. Why was it taking so much work to stay that way? He evaded too much truth. He would smile warmly at her one minute and plow her into the ground the next. He wouldn't say how he felt and then sent her out on her own like he didn't care.

He didn't _want_ to care. That's what hurt the most.

Orange sunshine heated Kess' face when she crossed the street to South Base. The small industrial neighborhood looked different in the daytime. She stepped onto the sidewalk and curled around the permatemp building where she met Luke for the first time. Lokey never did get his dud sabers for a new fencing class.

She poked through the empty lobby and stepped around the arch to the silent training room in the back. Fencing swords stood neatly on a wall rack. Blue mats covered the space in the middle of the floor. Only one body was in there, the one she expected to see, and Kess dropped her shoulder on the door jam to watch Poco Lokey swing around an immense steel sword by himself.

Her face blossomed a big smile. "A _claymore_?"

Lokey stopped short and glanced, startled, over his shoulder.

"Where the hell did you get that?" Kess laughed at him.

Lokey smiled to step over just as she stepped out. "Hey! How are you?" He dropped the flat of the blade on his shoulder and held the hilt out for her to take.

"Still kicking." She eyed the metal beast. She wrapped her fingers around the hilt with both hands, flicked her eyes to him to ensure she had permission, and lifted it off his shoulder.

Lokey tucked his shoulder out of the way and let her have it.

Kess was ready, holding it firmly, but still wasn't prepared for the weight. The claymore fell fast until the tip landed on the floor.

Kess blushed and laughed. "Sweet sandy, this thing is heavy."

Lokey crossed his arms at his chest with a smart-ass smirk. "So what were you doing all that time you were gone?"

They shared a smile. Kess worked to pick up the claymore again. "Lightsabers are, by their nature..." she shrugged at the pun.

Lokey came over and took it from her. "Speaking of which." He set the metallic beast aside.

"The duds work," she told him. "But you need to ask the man yourself."

"Can't you put in a good word?"

"Already have," her tone dipped, "much as it carries." She shrugged weirdly and stuffed her hands in her pockets, locking her elbows. "You got any slots open?" She tried to sound bright.

Lokey's eyes flicked back to find her. His smile warm, "For you? Of course." He grinned friendly, spreading his palms. "Besides, Rett misses you. He'd slice me to bits if I don't let you come back to class."

She set her weight onto one foot. "Was that your piece of hardware I sliced up at the party?"

Lokey assured. "Nobody got hurt; I forgive you." He clasped his hands in front of himself.

Kess nodded to her chest.

He brightened, lifting an index finger of thought like a light bulb going off. "But, there _is_ a way you can pay me back."

Kess eyed him warily.

He stepped up, wagging his open hands in the air. "Do you know how to fix a busted air thruster that won't stop firing?"

Her head flicked back. "Depends on what kind of control module you've got." One look at his eyes and Kess could tell he didn't know that answer. "If an air thruster won't fire, that's a thruster problem. But if it won't _stop_ firing, that's a _control_ problem."

Lokey grinned suggestively. "You busy this afternoon?"

Kess dropped her smile to the floor and brought it back up with a nod. "I've got time to take a look at it. Where is it?"


	41. LL2 41 This is Not a Drill

** LL2       41        This is Not a Drill **

Pedestrians, speeder traffic, fighters overhead returning from watch... the Council Building and quad complex buzzed with business as usual.

"No one 'turned you in'," Han insisted as he skipped down the steps as fast as Luke was. "The news is all over the base already. Your first apprentice quitting on you is a big damn deal."

They landed on the sidewalk together and marched to the corner. "Yeah, well, training would have been a lot easier if I didn't have to do it under a microscope."

"Most of that is your fault, Luke." Han turned his chin down at the other man. "Putting her in Rogue Group was a bad idea."

"It needed to be done at the time," Luke assured, and then complained. "I would have transferred her out a long time ago if she hadn't grounded me." They stopped at the corner to wait for traffic and Luke rubbed his forehead. "Maybe Chief Commander is right. Maybe I should resign my commission."

Han crossed his arms at his chest and kept his voice down to keep the other pedestrians from overhearing. "Working two jobs isn't easy for anybody."

Luke let out a sigh through his nose.

"Especially _those_ two."

Luke glanced down the street and turned to cross it, but his face struck alert.

Han stopped and looked, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. The kid turned as a speeder passed by. Han got only a glimpse of the two bodies inside. He squinted, "Was that her?"

Luke's eyes stayed hard on the speeder as it drove to the landing complex in the far corner, the civilian hangar. He muttered to watch it. "Pay attention. _Pay attention_."

Han looked at the kid's gritted teeth. "What?"

Luke shouted, "Dammit, Kess, _wake up_!"

Han watched with guarded alarm.

Luke burst to a run, pulling out his lightsaber as he shot across the street.

"Luke!" Han started to race after him, but a speeder screeched to a halt to keep from hitting Han. Han stumbled in a panicked circle to avoid being creamed by speeders. Luke was already running full speed across the open grass before he managed across the street. "Luke!"

The Jedi slowed his run just enough to turn and throw an order at Han. "Have Control to put us on lockdown!"

Han backed up a step.

" _Do it now_!" Luke turned and ran away.

Han turned his feet and dashed fast up the steps again.

* * *

 _Did I want to be a Jedi because I was falling for him? Or did I fall for him because I wanted to be a Jedi?_     

Kess strolled into the unsecured hangar behind the babbling civilian and looked around at all the random civilian ships parked here. Poco Lokey kept rattling on about his attempts to fix the boat, the story how he used it when it didn't have an engine, and the quest he endured to get another one installed.

Something felt wrong.

Kess pressed her palms to the side of her face and tried to get her mind off of it. _Of course, something felt wrong!_

Around the corner to Pad 61, Lokey approached a dingy Y-wing in the corner, going on and on about how he had to fight the stick when he flew it until he disabled the thruster entirely.

 _He knew it all along. Not that I was good at hiding it, but even if I did, he knew Force Empathy from the beginning._ Her face burned with embarrassment over all that Luke must have sensed from the start.

Lokey shimmied up the ladder talking about how his wife was bugging him for a weekend trip to Nakisa. Kess tiredly climbed up the ladder behind him to the Y-wing cockpit.

 _There is no emotion, there is peace. He's just been waiting it out, waiting for the training to beat all the emotion out of me, waiting until I didn't care anymore._         

Lokey stood on the pilot's seat with the open canopy over his head. He stuffed tools into her hand and helped her to step back to the gunner's seat.

 _You just let me go. If you didn't want me then why you kiss me in the first place? I can't believe you just let me go like that._            

"The minute you hook it up it's going to start firing again so wait until we get far enough away from the base."

Kess plopped down into the gunner's seat so she could get to the unit and heckled weakly at his innocence. "No, Lokey, I don't need you to take the thing up to troubleshoot it." She tucked down to the control unit install by her left knee and put the screwdriver to it.

Lokey stopped talking.

Kess heard the click and looked up to find the canopy coming down. Now alert, she cranked open her senses to the man to find a tornado of desperation and deceit.

She reached fast her lightsaber and found only a hip.

Lokey's brought down a heavy tool onto her head.

* * *

The grass landscape between the Complexes never felt so long as it did today. Luke tried to sense, think, and run, all at the same time.

 _The news is all over the base._            

He struggled to pull out his commlink without slowing his run and commed the last number dialed. The complex loomed over him now and he raced between bodies and runners to get into it.

"Antilles."

Luke raced as he shouted into the mike. "General Quarters!"

"What?"

"GENERAL QUARTERS!" As Luke rounded the corner, the Y-wing was already in the air and disappearing through the door above. His feet skidded to a stop to watch it go. _"This is not a drill!_ " and was already backing up again to run back the other direction.

* * *

Kess struggled in the gunner's seat, holding her throbbing head and felt the earth sink away from her stomach. "Lokey! What in the name of the Force are you doing?"

Lokey turned around in the pilot's seat and plopped into it, "Saving my ass."

She narrowed her eyes at the back of his head and pounded the butt of the screwdriver against the back of his skull. Lokey reeled and leaned forward to get away from her. The atmo partition between the seats shot up with a slam, and Lokey punched in the thrusters.

* * *

 ** _BZZT BLAAH. BZZT BLAAH_** _._ Yellow and red lights spun on the walls. Heads poked out of open fighter panels. Wedge shot out of the office and yelled at people as he raced to the locker room. **_General Quarters. General Quarters._ ** Seidrik skidded on the deck and crashed into the Flight ops cabinet. R2 units whirred fast under X-wings to be sucked into their sockets. **_All hands man your battle stations._ ** Repair slapped portholes shut and ran for the ladders. **_BZZT BLAAH. BZZT BLAAH_** _._

When Luke tore around the corner to Pad 14, all of his X-wings were already gone except two. Wedge stood in his cockpit, ducked under the canopy. "Is it Kess?!"

Luke stormed up to Ashten with the flight suit in hand and threw the orange outfit over his clothes.

"Is she turning to the dark side?"

Neilson had Rogue Five powered up and jumped quickly down the ladder so Luke could run up it. He didn't answer only because he would be on the Ops channel in seconds anyway. Luke shoved himself into the ship as he tried to keep a grip on his anger at her, but he didn't have time to meditate.

As soon as he switched on the radio, he heard Seidrik's nearly frantic voice, "Rogue Three and Five, cleared for launch!"

Almost in unison, they cut the mooring lines, hit the thrusters, and both rose into the air.

"Control, Rogue Leader. Lieutenant Lendra is being kidnapped in a Y-wing that just took off out of Pad 61."

A very alert voice came over the air, "Rogue Leader, Control; kidnapping aye. Rogue Group is on the chase and flying high west. All hands. Do _not_ shoot at the Y-wing. Repeat. All hands..."

* * *

Kess tried to catch her dizzy head as the Y-wing yanked her into the air and away from home. She pounded on the transparisteel barrier and shouted at the back of his head. "Lokey, you idiot! You're in the middle of a military base!"

 _Not for long._ Kess looked out the window to see the pad complexes disappear behind them. The last sight of the base she saw included the streetlights start flashing red and yellow.

Lokey donned a headset and flipped open the separate channel to the back seat. "They've sent the order not to shoot us down, Kess. I guess they do want to keep you."

Kess shook the circling birds from her head and asked almost casually, "And why am I such a precious commodity?"

Lokey glanced up to search the cloud-patched sky above them. "Don't know," he said. "Don't care."

With a huff, Kess glanced down at the thruster unit he used to con her in here. There was nothing wrong it.

She looked at the screwdriver in her hand.

There was nothing wrong with it _yet_.

* * *

Ten X-wings of Rogue Group raced high above the surface in tight formation and Luke sped to catch up.

Someone chattered on the ops channel, "What are we supposed to do if we can't shoot 'em?"

Luke glanced up at the ozone layer, seeing nothing but sky. _Yet_. "He's gonna try to make it into orbit! Get on top of them! Keep 'em from clearing ozone! And somebody eyeball if that thing's got a hyperdrive."

Rogue Group scrambled to speed up over the spinning craft. It wavered in the air wildly, allowing them to catch up a little, but slowly steadied and began to rise through the clouds ahead.

 _Keep fighting him,_ Luke thought. _Keep fighting him so we can catch up._    

Rogue Three and Five moved slowly into position to join the wall of X-wings barreling behind the Y-wing's aft. Moving almost as a single object, they all banked up, punched through the billowy clouds, and went ballistic into the stars.

Back at the base, hoards of X-wings, Y-wings, A-wings, B-wings, small frigates, armored transports, and the _Millennium_ _Falcon_ took to the sky. The entire Rebellion raced into space as though they missed this stuff.

 


	42. LL2 42 The Battle of the Y Wing

** LL2       42        The Battle of the Y-wing **

Lokey grew more anxious when he reached ozone and wasn't paying attention to what she was doing. Kess unscrewed the panel as fast as she could, took a moment to figure out what was what, and pounded on the tubing inside with the butt of the screwdriver. After several hits, the little tube collapsed, fuel squirted out of a crack, and the port thruster went out.

The Y-wing banked into a giant, wavering U-turn. Lokey fought for control of the stick until he saw his trailers and screamed.

X-wings and came out of the clouds and shot past him like rain in his face. Lokey put half power to the shields and the other half to the engines and shoved the stick left. Instead of fighting the missing thruster, he dove into it and scooped down into the atmosphere and back out again.

By now, Green-striped X-wings joined the Red ones. Rogue Group split into three pieces and were already turning around to come back at him.

Still struggling with the thruster, Lokey stared wide-eyed to recognize Rogue Leader coming at him like a chicken fight and focused in terror at its furious pilot. He yanked desperately on the stick for control and pulled himself, just barely, out of Skywalker's path.

He managed a wavering turn to duck back up into space but now had Rogue Group hot on his tail.

"I thought Rogue Group was GROUNDED!" Lokey yelled in frustration.

Kess turned to the other knee and started unscrewing the panel for the other thruster. "This ain't our first Pod Race, Lokey! You never disable more than three at a time." She shouted back, uncaring if he heard her through the intercom, but then fury took over. She sat up and yelled into the tiny mike in the corner. "Thousands of really pissed off _rebels_ will soon be on your _ASS_!"

Blue sky faded into the blackness of night with pinpoints of stars and the crowd of one-man fighters left the ozone behind. Artoo beeped at him in a panic, Luke crooned his neck to look into space, and saw where Green Group had disappeared. "I _knew_ it!" He yelled, "Star Destroyer, eleven o'clock high. Command; We need more firepower out here!"

"We're sending you everything," Admiral Ackbar's rough voice said over the air, "Rogue Group; push them back into the atmosphere and circle them so they can't hit hyperspace. All others, _attack that Destroyer_."

All at once, forty tiny little craft fired at the white hull of the Star Destroyer and TIE fighters swarmed out of the docking bay like angry bees.

Wedge flipped to the Rogue-Only channel, "How the hell did they expect to pull this off?"

Luke's shields were beginning to shine white from invisible as his nose crept close over the top the Y-wing's main thrusters. "I don't think they care. They just want her out of my hands, alive or dead."

His shields tapped against the others and knocked him away again. "Dammit! I can't get on top of them!"

* * *

Something in the black above her caught her eye and Kess glanced up with surprise they were in space already. Her eyes widened to see the fat part of an X-wing's nose hovering only a few metres above her. The shields of both ships glowed as they crossed and the polarity bobbed the ships away from each other again.

She never thought they'd fly _this_ close. She shrunk herself down into the foot space of the Y-wing and peeked fearfully out the lip of the canopy to see all the rest of the Rogue Group flying around in chunks of formation, to see Green Group scattered to the breeze and infested with TIE fighters, to see a far away white wedge of a Start Destroyer...

"Oh, _crap_!"

Kess was still reeling from that shock when the _Millennium_ _Falcon_ shot up in front of them and spun on its axis to aim its guns at her face.

Kess ducked.

"What the _hell_ is going on up here!" Solo called comically into the mike.

Luke clenched his jaw with a tight smile. He gave more power to the shields and skirted closer to the Y-wing, "I think they're trying to steal the Usak from us again."

Han's pirate attitude sounded clearly on the ops channel, "Or they're just trying to piss _you_ off!" He sailed low over the top of the bumping fighters and purposefully dipped the _Falcon's_ rear end to knock the Y-wing's nose downward. It sunk a dozen metres and bounced right back up, trying to get out from underneath Luke.

Rogue Group and _Falcon_ zipped around the craft in a large bubble, trying to push them safely back to the ground. When Kess looked again, they were surrounded by furious X-wings, but still managed to close the distance between themselves and the Star Destroyer. Two pickle-shaped, Mon Calamari cruisers were coming up fast behind the Destroyer with their fighters squadrons already dumped into the battle and firing full on the Star Destroyers tail. At least three squadrons of TIE fighters flocked around the cruisers and swarmed the air, chasing (and running from) Alliance troops.

Kess' confidence melted. She'd never been in battle in such a small ship before. This felt pathetically vulnerable. Then she realized all this was happening just to save her.

Kess cursed aloud and shut her eyes, sending her yelling thoughts at the white light in the Force that tailed them. " _I'm not that important, dammit!_ _Shoot me down before they get what they came for!"_

She heard his frustrated voice sound out in a dozen musical notes in the back of her head. _"You're important to **me**!" _

Even the hint that he really cared refueled Kess' rebellious fire. She put the screwdriver to use again to opening the panel under the atmo barrier. Gravity started to fade. Kess had to wedge herself in the foot space so she could keep the grip on the screws. She glanced up from time to time to find X-wings circling them like a bubble, but they were still slowly moving away from the moon. She tore open the panel and fingered the wires within.

Lokey had his hands full with fighting the broken ship, fighting Luke, and fighting to keep the headset to his mouth. She could hear him through the intercom. "This is Mugwot Pon! I _have_ the Usak! Repeat! I _have_ the Usak!"

In seconds, she had a knot of cables yanked out, crunched down on them with her back teeth until the plastic connector came apart, and spit it all out of her lips in pieces. Electricity bit her tongue, and when she chomped down the wire with her teeth, it bit her again, buzzing through her teeth and into her brain. Kess rattled her head and turned her attentions into the open guts of the panel. She reached in and tapped the live wire on every piece of metal she could find.

The craft dipped and wavered, and Luke was able to maneuver directly over top of them. As Kess continued to fidget with the ships functions, Luke lowered down bumped hard at the shields. The Y-wing dove towards the planet.

A TIE whined in front of them, skipping on the atmosphere, and was followed by an A-wing, firing rapidly until the Imperial exploded. TIEs zipped around them like mad, taking up chase with nearly every X-wing that fought to contain the little civilian ship. Several of them needed to peel off the bubble, quickly leaving the Y-wing and Rogue Leader in the hurried struggle.

The hull groaned. The Y-wing slowed and rattled. A tractor beam started pulling them nose-first toward the Star Destroyer.

"It's about time!" Lokey yelled with a smile of relief.

Luke felt the shuddering of the tractor beam and realized that he'd been caught in it with them. He looked up and saw the giant white belly and the open bay doors. Fighting with the beam, he brought the engines to one-quarter power. He yanked hard on the stick and rolled up on his axis. He pointing his nose at the Star Destroyer's open belly and gave it _all_ his guns.

"Luke, stop," said Han's voice.

Just as his firing paused, the _Falcon_ moved in between the Destroyer and Rogue Five, the tractor beam automatically grabbed the huge disc shaped ship instead of the two fighters. As soon as they realized it, the tractor beam was cut off, but Han didn't move out of the way. He hovered over Luke and protected him as long as he could.

Luke pushed to spin back down on his axis without losing his position above them, but before the nose lowered to where he could see them, a TIE fighter came at his left side and collided with his shields, sending them both spinning wildly out of the way. The TIE's wingman used the same suicidal stunt on the Y-wing, but the TIE splintered in the air as they slid sideways.

As soon as Lendra's craft cleared from underneath the _Falcon_ , the tractor beam regained its grip and started pulling the Usak up again.

Kess gritted her teeth as she could see the bodies of stormtroopers inside the Star Destroyer's hangar bay. She looked around frantically for an idea. Her eyes landed on the controls in his cockpit.

She glanced once at Rogue Leader now turning around to fly back, and Kess closed her eyes. Her Force print looked like a giant bruise, but she no longer cared. She pulled up her powers from the depths of her gut, opened hard eyes on the separator control button, and the atmo barrier fell down.

Kess immediately stabbed the screwdriver into the side of Lokey's neck.

Her eyes went wide with shock as Lokey lurched. Blood squirted from his throat. He shuddered and gurgled, and soon went limp. Kess stared in horror at the screwdriver still sticking out of the side of his neck, of the blood running down into his clothes and the pilot's seat. Her stomach lurched. She covered her mouth with both palms and kicked to get backwards to get away from the crime.

* * *

Luke curled his nose as though the stench of death wasn't just on the Force.

He looked down again at the top of the Y-wing still caught in the tractor beam. He could barely make out her body scrambling in the back seat. He touched his dampers to slow down and yanked the stick around to turn his nose, trying to hover down over the top of the Y-wing at an angle.

The Y-wing rumbled by as if it were passing him on an escalator.

Kess pulled the headset from around Lokey's neck and slapped it on her head. She glanced at Luke, facing her from the side and looked fearfully up into the Star Destroyers giant mouth. Anything was better than being live Imperial lunch. "Luke," she yelled into the mike, "You know damn well what's going to happen if they get me! Shoot me!"

She glared up at the X-wing hovering over her head. "I'd rather die by your blasters than by your lightsaber. _Shoot me_!"

A TIE came at him from behind, and Luke called into the mike, "You still with me, Wedge?"

"I got him!" Wedge yelled back.

Luke called out, "Lendra, all power to your shields." _If it worked for them, it'll work for us._ He slammed on his thrusters. He flew right into the side of her and, just before he hit, could see Kess' body curl into a ball in the cockpit.

Luke's forward shields collapsed and his nose hit her port wing, wrinkling both badly and killing his sensor computer. The blips in his targeting window went blank. X-wings and the Y-wing spun wildly around and out of the grip of the tractor beam.

Luke rattled his head before he was sure he was still alive. "I can't afford to do that again, guys! Somebody get up here and help me!" Luke fought to steady his craft and realized that his upper port thruster had gone out as well.

The TIEs swarmed around with Rebels on their tails, distracting them from attacking the Destroyer. The Destroyer pulled all of its guns from the annoying one-man fighters and pointed them directly at the Y-wing.

Luke's heart stopped in horror as the Imperials decided to take the Usak dead instead.

The green laser bolts pelted at the Y-wing from all directions. It jerked this way and that, a small explosion erupted from its rear. The port wing ripped completely away from its chunky body. The tiny lights on the ship blinked out. Broken pieces of fighters began to drift toward the planet, getting sucked down by the gravity well.

The Y-wing began to follow them down, completely crippled, and Luke noticed the Destroyer was slowly moving its pointed nose between him... and her…

 


	43. LL2 43 We Can't Afford to Lose Both Jedi

** LL2       43        We Can't Afford to Lose Both Jedi **

A random collection of Rebels flew at the Destroyer's side to take out the various guns. Luke pulled at the stick, but the craft jerked unevenly around the Destroyer's nose. The _Falcon_ sailed over his head, firing all guns at the looming tower. One of the Mon Calamari cruisers moved slowly over the top-rear of the Destroyer, plowing it with red bolts of lightning, and the resulting explosion beheaded the giant Imperial polygon. The death stench hit Luke's senses again, but this time he sighed with tense relief.

The Destroyer was already showing signs of internal explosions. Luke continued to jerk his craft and get around the Destroyer's nose. Worried, he yelled into the mike, "Lendra! Report!"

Luke sent his thoughts out just as he spotted the craft drifting away from the exploding Star Destroyer. He huffed and fought his ship to meet her. _"Kesselia! Talk to me!"_

Kess shuddered in the darkened cockpit, having been knocked around like a marble in a pinball machine. Her head dripped with blood and her left hand wouldn't move. She barely heard Luke's voice in the back of her mind.

Then she realized what just happened and began to look around her in a panic, but when she crooned her neck to do so, she saw the Star Destroyer, completely engulfed in flames, drifting down to crash into the planet's surface _and right on top of her._

At least the TIEs were dropping out of the firefight rapidly as the Rebels outnumbered them more and more. Luke's nose-wrinkled, X-wing crept in her direction, and the Mon Calamari cruiser drifted powerfully over the Destroyer, popping off what was left of the TIEs. But those clear signs of winning the battle didn't help her out a whole lot.

She struggled to reach her good arm over dead Lokey and yanked at the throttle. The Y-wing didn't even make a noise. All the lights were out. Her head flooded with dizziness and the bones in her forearm screamed in revolt. She looked up at Destroyer, the oxygen spraying out of its hull in angry flames and its massive weight caught in the gravity well. Its drift toward the planet increased exponentially and the dead bug of a ship she was in was about to be crushed like a moth under a boot.

Terrified, Kess looked to the nearby X-wing for help. _"Bump me again."_

"I CAN'T!" Luke growled aloud.

The remaining TIEs carried out their last orders and zipped toward the Y-wing to shower it with red bolts. Luke fired at them, but couldn't get a lock onto anybody because his sensors were out, and he couldn't maneuver smoothly enough to take up chase either. He was able to tug himself next to her and fired out at any approaching TIE. Several squadrons of Rebels were happy to lock on target and blow the TIEs to oblivion one by one, but one came from behind and hit Rogue Five squarely in the rear. His other three thrusters went dead.

A Green pilot called over the mike, "Lendra, I'm right behind you. I'm gonna push you out of the way."

Luke knew that the slightest tap could collapse her airtight integrity and the vacuum of space would suck her whole body through a pinhole if it could. He spoke heavily, "Lendra's ship is dead of power. She can't hear you. And her shields are down." He pulled on his own stick, but the X-wing didn't respond. "Get out of here, Green Three. Get out of the way of it."

Kess saw the two hovering over her in indecision and made the decision for herself. _"Luke, just go. It's too close. We can't afford to lose both Jedi."_

Luke huffed and glanced over.

She wasn't kidding.

Kess touched her fingertips on the warm transparisteel canopy towards him. His X-wing drifted sideways into her, his upper port wing less than a metre from her hull, and the massive wall of flames licked at what was left of his shields. She could see the helmet in the cockpit turn away from the heat.

Kess closed her eyes and calmed her breathing. She put her thoughts to the Force and whispered her last words to him—

 _"Kess, use the Force._ " Luke's voice said in the back of her mind. _"Push yourself away from it."_                 

Her eyes opened with a gasp at the interruption and she looked out at his helmet-covered face. She fought her thoughts to calm down, but fear, shock, pain and panic was all she could find. She looked out at Luke until his face turned away.

He bowed his head as if to pray, and she heard his voice whisper at her again, _"C'mon. Don't give up on me now."_

Kess swallowed the cold blood from her mouth and drifted free gunner's seat. She closed her eyes, adjusting her broken arm to rest on her knee. She reached down deep into her soul and grabbed a hold of the only part of her emotional cloud that wasn't black with panic and fear. But the love that was left was still darkened blood red with the passion of a broken heart.

It may be on the dark side, but it was going to have to do.

She could feel his power out there, using the Star Destroyer as leverage to push against the back of her ship. In near zero gravity, the crafts crept away from each other at an even pace. He aimed his grip against the back of the Destroyer's hull to let it twist to the side and around them.

She reached out with him and began to push as well. The power grew easier to do and her senses stretched out to push against the entirety of the giant triangular hull. It was a slippery slope. She glided right into hating every Imperial for everything. She began to loathe her father more than a simple dysfunctional relationship would warrant. She wanted to reach out to Luke and wring his little neck! She took all these emotions out on the Star Destroyer and gritted her teeth with insidious pleasure when the giant machine started moving closer to the atmosphere. As her thoughts engulfed the whole scene, she recognized the distance growing between her and the Destroyer, but Rogue Five hadn't budged.

Her concentration collapsed. Her eyes flew open and she scrambled around in the seat to look behind her. Luke's chin still bowed to his lap, concentrating all his strength to push her out of the way but not himself. His X-wing was already drifting down into the atmosphere from the force of the spewing flames yet he sat there as if he didn't notice. He continued to push the back of her X-wing until it completely cleared the Destroyer's wide tail. Now, she could barely see his body because of the distance, but when the red-hot beams of the hull scraped on his upper starboard wing, his Force light melted away.

Kess screamed, "Luke!"

The Y-wing jerked violently upward. Kess' eyes darted about to see if someone had hit her, but she found the Mon Calamari cruiser moving slowly over top of her like a mother bird to its chick. Her tiny craft shuddered as it rose and Kess recognized the feel of the tractor beam with a smile. Just as quickly, she turned back to Luke and smiled wider. The sleek body of Rogue Five was shaking violently toward her, charred black on one side, and frozen in its cock-eyed position as the cruiser pulled him out of the Destroyer's path.

The Star Destroyer drifted painfully close by Luke's tail and accelerated nose-first into the atmosphere. She could see the triangle melt into a jagged ball as it fell to the planet's surface like a giant, flaming meteor. It hit the ground within a minute, and Kess could see the planet's crust quivering from the blow.

She turned to Luke and smiled dizzily. She could barely see his helmet move to look at her and then his head dropped back against the cockpit seat with relief. Hundreds of Rebel troops flew ahead of them to the base, she could see the bodies of Repair in the docking bay and could imagine the shouting of victory when the last TIE fighter exploded in space. Kess laughed happily, overwhelmed at the relief that they would live, and sighed the words aloud instead, where no one would hear her. "I love you."

When she brought the breath back in, her lungs stung, and her sight wavered in nausea. She blinked rapidly and slowed her breathing through an open mouth to fight off the drunken feeling. When the power went dead, so did the life support systems, and she was already running out of useful air in the canopy. She looked back up to the cruiser, now enveloping her in its belly, and the tractor beam slowly pulled her aside the open bay in the deck. The bodies racing around her craft started to leave multiple images of themselves as they ran.

Kess fought the dizziness, trying to keep from passing out, and closed her eyes until she could hear the crowbars scratching to get under the lip of the canopy. Just as she looked up, the seal broke and fresh oxygen rushed in. She gulped down the cool air in desperation and reached out blindly, grabbing the first hand she could find, and helped them pull her from the coffin.

She saw flashes of the scene between long blinks of queasiness. Arms grabbed her body, steadying her enough to climb out of the cockpit and onto grated steps. Her eyes didn't want to stay open and her legs stumbled weakly down the ladder, stiff faces and relieved sighs, army green and khaki. The shouting of orders echoed in the large bay with after-battle emergencies.

The only real thought that crossed her mind was to notice that she wasn't one of the engineers to load the wounded after the battle. This time, she _was_ one of the wounded.

There was a body under her good arm and body behind her opposite side. She fought to keep her left hand huddled into her stomach. She wouldn't let them have it. Someone was pressing hard against the side of her head. All these hands dragged her stumbling feet away from the Y-wing. The bright lighting ahead went dim as more bodies crowded in front of her. Her eyelids peeled opened to see only a life support unit on the chest of a red-orange flight suit.

Kess wrapped her good arm around his neck and pulled herself into him, shuddering in terror. He struggled to peel her away, guiding her through the crowd, and unwrapped her arm from his neck to push her backwards onto a gurney. Hands forced her to lie down and other hands strapped her in to stay there.

Unable to keep her eyes open without throwing up, Kess groped for him and tried to cry out, but Luke's body and hands slipped from her reach. She struggled for a glimpse to find him staring at her with pained defeat as they rolled her away, and Kess promptly passed out.

 


	44. LL2 44 Something to Heal

**LL2       44        Something to Heal**

The deep hum of hyperspace filled her ears. Her left forearm ached and her wrist was frozen in place. She blinked open her eyes to see a dim light in the berthing cabin. A tiny kitchen unit and a two-person booth filled the opposite wall. She looked around without moving her head and found there wasn't much more in these cramped quarters.

Slowly, she tried sitting up and, though her head pounded on the way, she was surprised when she succeeded. Wearing only med-lab issue pajamas, she lowered bare feet to the metal deck and held the bunk frame to stand. She ducked instinctively and squinted behind her to find that it was a double stack bunk, but there was no one in the bed above her.

The grating felt like it was cutting into the skin of her feet. Wobbling on jelly legs, she reached for the door, stopped to clear her mind, calm her nausea, and pressed it open to find the cockpit of this tiny ship.

Luke looked up from the pilot's seat with a soft voice. "Good morning."

Kess stepped in, shielding her eyes from the light. The stars were wavering lines streaking passed them at light speed.

Luke put down a datapad, pulled his feet from the co-pilot's chair, and reached for her, "Come here."

Her eyes went to him and found that he wasn't looking at her but the side of her head. She touched her fingers to the area and felt her scalp matted with a sticky goop. Her yelp of pain echoed in the small room.

"Don't touch it," he scolded like she was stupid. "Sit down."

She lowered into the co-pilot's seat and let him take the bandage out of her hair. It was the size of his hand and thick with blackened, drying blood. He delicately pushed away the matted hair at her scalp and backed away without touching the tender spot. "It stopped bleeding," he said, tossing the used bandage on the console. "We'll give it some air. How do you feel?"

Her mouth was dry when she mumbled, "Like I have a hangover."

He leaned back in the chair, resting an elbow on the console. "We were worried about that concussion. The Two-One-Bee said it may have left you blind."

In pure displeasure, brown eyes tilted to him from under her brows. "I can see fine."

He rubbed his lips together, trying to ignore her tone. "You're arm had a clean break. They fused it back in place, but it'll be sore for a while." He watched her glance at the cast and caress the plaster it with the other hand.

He fought to make his tone light. "I'll show you the healing meditation after we eat. It'll speed up the process."

Kess pushed her long hair behind her shoulder and pressed her fingertips to her temples. "Did I have to earn that trick, too?"

"Sort of," he murmured, moving his gaze away. "You had to have something to heal."

She closed her eyes and called him a nasty name in the back of her mind. She wanted to reach over and throw her arms around him the same time she wanted to shove him into an airlock and eject him into hyperspace.

She glanced back at the sight of hyperspace. Her mouth was dry when she mumbled, "Where are we going?"

Luke was still facing her in the pilot's chair, but he sunk his elbows to his knees and stared at the deck. "Just some place to hide out for a while."

She looked at the top of his head and noticed his white shirt, navy jacket, blue pants: no uniform. She angled her head to see beyond his arm: no lightsaber. Kess looked around the ship that was tinier than the _Falcon_. Her eyes blinked slowly. "Where's Artoo?"

He rubbed his palms together and whispered it. "I left him at home." She watched him fold his fingers together and stare at his own hands.

Her words bit hard at the air. "So let me get this straight."

Luke sheepishly eyed her from under guarded eyebrows.

Clearly, she had to do the math for the man. "I requested a transfer to _get away from you_. I quit Jedi Training to _get away from you_. And now, in order to recover from wounds I got being _kidnapped_ , you thought it was a good idea for us run off _alone_ together to hide out for a while?" Her voice to a squeak. "Without even a droid to get in the way of us killing each other?"

Amidst her ranting, Luke rubbed his eyes quickly, sighed quickly, and rolled back his shoulders to sit up and face her down with a growl of his own, "I'm the only one who can handle you right now."

She winced back, "What is _that_ supposed to mean?"     

Luke angled his head so he could look her hard in the eye, his own anger flaring. "What do you _think_ it means?"

After only a glimpse of his glaring truth, Kess slammed denial over her face. "Get away from me."

He huffed in defeat, scratching the side of his head with worry, and pushed to his feet. "Come on. I'll fix you something to eat."

"I don't want to eat."

He was already moving to stand when she said it. He stopped mid-step and turned, but didn't look at her. Luke drew in a sigh and let it out, loud and worried.

"Fine, I'll eat." She stood as quickly as she could, grabbed the chair for balance, and moved passed him without looking at him.

Sitting across from her in the tiny booth, Luke watched her pick at her food as he monotonously explained the details of the battle she hadn't seen. Someone disabled the base tractor beam. The Y-wing was legitimately Lokey's property so no one questioned it when he wanted to take off. According to other clues they found here and there, they determined it was sloppily planned attempt to kidnap the Usak for the Empire.

As for the actual dog fighting: they lost three pilots out of thousands, which was a success by war strategy standards, but Kess couldn't help thinking that losing three pilots to save one repair engineer was an absolute tragedy. Luke tried to console her with that old cliché: All for one and one for all.

"And Lokey?" Kess muttered at her plate.

Luke rubbed his lips to watch her stare at nothing and see only the raw truth. Luke thought to reach for her hand but stopped himself. He thought maybe to give her a hug of support but stopped himself. He talked instead. "He kept himself clean. We couldn't find any signs of a network. Aside from the fact that he was the one in the Y-wing, there was no evidence he was the spy."

"All that bit about asking you for the lightsaber schematic..." She shook her head with a sick grin.

"He was hardly the only one out there growing impatient for me to pick up an apprentice."

"Guess that made me a target the minute I told him about Grandpa." She shook her head some more. "Long before I met you."

"You're only a target because you're not strong enough yet. Kadaan thinks he can turn you to the dark side. And if he's offered up system severance for you, you're _currency_ out there."

She dropped shameful eyes. "Guess Kadaan is right. And he didn't even need to catch me."

"The only reason you turned is because you were weak when it happened."

Kess got up from the booth and gathered her plate. "And whose fault is that?"

"Fine! I admit it," Luke blurted. "I've been working you too hard," he whined in defeat as he climbed out of the booth. "I guess working you harder to get this over with is only making it worse. Kess, what you need right now is a good night's sleep and a healing meditation. That's why we're out here. Sleep. Heal. Meditate." He coughed and the ludicrously of all this. "We can kill each other later."

At just the hint of a Jedi Master's order, she threw her plate at the wall and came at him with claws. "I quit. I told you. I don't want to hear another fu—

Luke lifted his hands to block her blows, but he knew she wasn't attacking him exactly. She pounded for his chest and arms in a childish desperation to hurt the thing that hurt her, but the thing that hurt her wasn't physical, tangible, or attackable with a pair of frustrated fists. Still, he grabbed her wrists out of the air anyway, and he didn't need to use the Force to overpower her because she seemed decisive not to use the Force to attack him.

Holding her back only made her scream with wrath. She fought harder against his clutches, gold hair shattered in the air behind her. One moment she tried to punch his face, but his firm grip stopped it. The next moment she yanked violently backwards to get out of his grasp, but Luke just yanked her back in.

Don't come closer. Don't go away. Just like always.

Luke took the advantage of her shifting feet to get behind her, turning her, wrapping her arms around her own body by her right wrist and left-hand cast. He smashed her back against his body and wrapped his arms around her like a straight jacket, holding her just firm enough to get her to stop.

Her soul was in shreds. She shuddered and quieted a moment only to jerk violently a moment later to try to break free. She stomped her bare feet and whimpered with fury, whispering in a shaky voice the same words over and over again. "Let me go. Let me go. Let me go. Let me go."

"No."

She fought with fresh rage and he tightened his hold around her, this time dragging her two steps over to the bunk. She fought harder as he shoved her to the scrambled blankets. He pressed her wrist and cast to her ears. She kicked to get free and he leaned the weight of his side over the top of her body to keep her down. He gritted his teeth to get her pinned and keep her there without hurting her more.

When she finally stopped fighting, Luke was huffing just as red-faced and wet-lashed as she was. She stared at the ceiling with sharp indignation.

"I'm not going to let you go." He resolved, rough and quiet. "Not like this."

She bit her lips shut and wrinkled her nose.

"I don't want to have to kill you later," he pointed out sadly.

Her eyes flicked to his like daggers.

And he kept them there. "You have to come _back_ , Kess. I will do whatever it takes to get you _back_... And _then_ I will let you go."

The way she stared at him, she understood what he meant. Her brows eased even as they trembled. Her body relaxed even as it twitched. Her fists unraveled under his grip and her eyes finally closed to squeeze out giant tears.

"Rest," he whispered. "Heal."

He gingerly lifted his hands a smidge to verify she was going to stay there. When she did, he pulled his hands completely away and sat up.

Kess curled up into a ball and rolled her back to him.

Luke pushed himself out of the berthing area and into the cockpit where he could close the door and wipe the stress away from his own eyes too.

 


	45. LL2 45 A Master's Guidance

** LL2       45        A Master's Guidance **

She fell asleep.

Eventually, Luke poked quietly out of the cockpit to clean up the mess from the meal, his eyes stretched to her sleeping body at every opportunity. Once the chores were done, he moved to her bedside to secure the bandage over her scalp. It had fallen off in the struggle. She was still curled up on her side with her back to the galaxy. As Luke tried to unravel the blanket from her legs to put it over her, she began to twitch with a nightmare.

He pushed the blanket over her shoulder and leaned over her with his own silent scream of prayer. He squeezed his eyes shut against her ear and tousled hair. She twitched and stiffened under him. He patted her head with his palm. Even his whisper quivered. "Shh." He wanted to reach in and just diffuse the nightmare with his own skill but was afraid of what he'd see.

Besides, this seemed to be working.

He pulled back only enough to look at her sleeping expression. She calmed to his touch. Luke considered this as he sat up. Thoughtfully, and with his real hand, he brushed her hair from her cheek with his fingers, caressing her skin more than he ever should.

The nightmare disintegrated.

She settled again in sleep with an acquiescing sigh. Her cheek reached blindly for his touch.

Luke smiled sadly. He gave the kitten one more loving stroke and soaked up her reaction as much as she innocently purred in the attention.

But he swallowed hard and stopped there. He stared at her sleeping face a minute more as she settled deeper into a peaceful dream. Luke sucked in a shaky sigh and pulled himself out of her range of influence.

For hours, he sat at the booth across the space and watched her sleep. He sat there like a dog, guarding her, worried about her, protecting her from nightmares, and trying to figure out what to do next with her. He combed both fingers into the hair atop his head and fretted. He moved to reread all the notes but tossed them away before booting it up. And all the while his eyes kept turning back to watch her with unlimited patience so she could rest and heal.

The nightmare returned. He could feel it before it visibly showed on her sleeping expression. Just as she began to twitch, Luke pulled his legs out to go back to her bedside, but there was already another man's hand resting on her forehead.

Luke stopped halfway to his feet when Obi-Wan Kenobi lit up like a long-awaited dawn.

The old man sat by Kess' hip on the bunk, his one hand reached out to rest his fingers tenderly on her eyebrows. She settled immediately, muttering as she zonked into a deeper sleep. Luke didn't need to hear the word to know what she said. _"Grandpa…"_

Luke settled into the booth and sighed with mixed emotions at Old Ben.

Once she was comfortably sleeping again, the dead Jedi set his palms on his kneecaps and turned his attentions over to Luke. Obi-Wan Kenobi gave him a look like he was going to rip the Luke's head right off the stump of his shoulders.

Luke rolled his head with a huff, torn between yelling at the man and pleading forgiveness.

Obi-Wan crossed his arms at his chest. "Have you figured it out yet?"

Luke slowly opened his eyes and faced him penitently. "Figured what out?"

"Why she hasn't tumbled completely out of your reach?"

Luke looked at Kess' sleeping face and back to the ghost of Obi-Wan. He didn't want to speak his suspicions out loud. Not to him.

"You've got her tethered," Obi-Wan explained. "She handed you the rope and now you're just hanging her with it."

"But I-" Luke stopped himself and took a deep breath. He looked at Obi-Wan with real honesty. "That's the last thing I want to do."

"I know," Obi-Wan assured. Then the man chuckled at the phrase Luke and Kess had coined. "'Jedi Mating Customs'." He laughed at it but sobered with terror too. "I do not envy your task to have to figure those out."

Luke pulled up a knee and rested his wrist on it. "So you _were_ celibate?"

"Yes. The humans within the Order were, all the way up until your father, anyway. Then everything changed."

"So she's not your granddaughter?"

Obi-Wan grinned gently. He shook his head.

"Is she your _daughter?_ "

A brow lifted like a shrug but… Obi-Wan shook his head.

Luke angled his chin and squinted at the man. "Who was her grand _mother_?"

Obi-Wan shrugged his fingers and diverted his eyes, but his chin lifted regally. "That's kind of a long story."

Luke wilted in an incredulous chuckle. He rolled his eyes and yelled at the man. "You need to tell her!"

"It doesn't matter," Obi-Wan pointed out, shrugging his hands. "Her memories of me are as strong as yours are. The love I felt for you both was real. I only wove perceptions of _fact_. And I did it for a good reason."

"Because you were in hiding."

Obi-Wan closed his eyes to nod a gray beard. "The Jedi Order adopted babies from their families and trained them in isolation the first few years of life. But _you_ ," he wagged a glowing finger at Luke, "I had to train you without the Force or lightsabers coming into conversation until you were old enough to vote."

Luke pressed his mouth and dropped his eyes.

"And when I happened upon a single mother with Force-sensitive babies," he shrugged toward Kess again, "I thought I ought to get you some help."

" _Single_ mother?" Luke echoed. "What about her father?"

"Bah," Obi-Wan waved that off. "Dane is not her father."

Luke blinked hard and just left his eyes closed this time.

Obi-Wan added, "And it's _his_ responsibility to tell her that."

Luke eyed him with an open mouth.

"You're going to Dagobah, yes?" Obi-Wan asked. "For the cave?"

Luke nodded, gathering himself again. "I thought maybe the cave would help her face it down in a safe place."

Obi-Wan understood but shook his head. "Hide until she's healed. Dagobah is good a place for that. But don't send her to the cave. Not yet. She's not ready."

Luke didn't argue. He was just glad for some Master's guidance.

"Luke, I know you think it's safer to keep well away from temptation," he hitched a new grin at the boy, "but you've got to let her breathe."

Luke struggled just to think about it. "Dammit Ben, even the Code says, 'there is _no_ passion'."

"Oh, bullocks. Hang the Code," Obi-Wan grumbled with a fresh laugh at the whole thing, quoting the absurdity of it. "'There is _this_ , there is no _that_.' 'Only the Sith deal in absolutes.'" He hitched a wiser grin, "To say such things, to believe them with such vehemence, such undeterred loyalty, it _is_ , in _itself_ , _an absolute_."

Luke absorbed all this.

"Yes, it is more comfortable to _know_ what is right, to know a 'fact', to adhere to a 'truth'. When facts grow cloudy, it's handy to have some set of rules written thousands of years ago in some archaic script and just call it all 'Gospel'." Obi-Wan shrugged. "That's the easy way. That's the _Sith_ way.

"What makes you a _Jedi_ is the willingness to step away from the comfortable and look at it from all angles, regardless of who wrote it, regardless of what it says. And I'm not talking about just choosing the lesser of two evils in a conflict; I'm talking about simply looking at 'truth' from other points of view for the sheer purpose of understanding it better.

"It's _work_. It's _difficult_. It leaves you in a state where you're questioning everything. And where you were once resolute, and uncompromising, and strong, now this makes you feel weak, and indecisive, and uncertain… _vulnerable_ …" Obi-Wan pinched his mouth in his beard and angled an eyebrow at the depth of this reality. "And it will be in that most vulnerable moment that the Force is going to test you. Jedi or no, there are three possible outcomes."

Luke crossed his arms at his chest, listening intently.

"Some will tumble right into it. They will leave their training half-finished and rush off at the first sign of conflict, overconfident and reckless."

Luke winced one eye shut with embarrassment and looked away.

"Most often, they lost to us forever and no one can save them. Sometimes, they decide to come back on their own." Obi-Wan grinned fondly at him. "Rare. But it happens."

Luke grinned at his lap.

" _Some_ will dig in their heels in and grab hold of the Code so hard, yank themselves back to what they _think_ was right all along and they save _themselves_. It's a beautiful occurrence. But too often they cling to that anchor from there forward, and if they don’t recover from it and get back _out there_ , on the _edge_ , where Jedi do their work, they _too_ are lost to us forever." He shrugged a little. "They're not dangerous, they're just not effective anymore."

Luke rubbed his lips with consideration of all this. "What's the third?"

Obi-Wan eyed him across the tiny room. "Some will throw a rope to a friend and call for help."

Luke absorbed Ben's wisdom and shifted his eyes back to his sleeping apprentice.

"You're father suffocated under the Code. But he never called for help. At least, not to me. _That's_ why he turned."

Luke sighed heavily.

"And _she_ is suffocating under _you_. And you're not answering her call. That's why _she_ turned."

Luke bowed his head.

Obi-Wan pleaded with the boy. "Luke, _pull her back in."_

" _You_ _told_ me to stop." Luke barred his teeth with rich exasperation. " _Ben_ —

"Luke, you know damn well why I stopped you that day." Obi-Wan he gave the boy a clear expression, _I may be civilized, lad, but I am not an idiot._

Luke slammed his mouth shut. His face flushed to a beautiful shade of bubblegum.

"And that's the last time I'm going to hold _your_ tether for _you_ , young man." He gave Luke a sideways glare. "Tread carefully."

"Should I tread at all? _Ever?"_ Luke chomped his jaw but held his ground. "Ben, it won't always be training."

Ben's eyes shifted with a dark shine as he seemed to shrug off the subject entirely. He watched Kess sleep a moment, then motioned to her, speaking conversationally at Luke. "You know, I was the first one to hold her? I'm the one that got to hand that baby to her own mother."

Luke looked down at the grown woman and sighed with a new understanding. It didn't matter how old she got, or how un-related she was, Kess would still be his grandchild. Luke's hope disintegrated.

But Ben's voice deepened with humor as he looked at Luke again, " _Coincidentally_ …"

Luke eyed him sideways.

"I was the first one to hold you too."

Luke's eyebrows shot up. He never knew this.

"That makes _you_ my grandchild, too, doesn't it?" Obi-Wan shrugged a new grin at the poetry, "From a certain point of view."

Luke's heart swelled into a new smile.

Obi-Wan stood up, looked down at Kess for a moment and stood over Luke. "You two don't need a roll in the sand dunes to figure this out. What you need is an _understanding_." His glowing figure began to fade, and his voice along with it. "Take on this trial shoulder to shoulder, not face to face…"

Luke stared at the spot where Obi-Wan had been standing and listened to the words echo in his brain. He bit his lower lip and scraped it with a huff, then settled in the booth to stare at her sleeping body.

With another fast sigh, he closed his eyes for a deep meditation on all of it.


	46. LL2 46 A Decision

** LL2       46       A Decision **

Kess woke up slowly, hiding her face in the cool pillow and forcing herself back to sleep on several occasions. Only the last few incidents of shallow consciousness did she realize she was still on that tiny little ship, but she never saw _him_. She thought she heard a boot step once, but that was it. She half-expected him to wake her up and make her do something training-like, but he never did.

After a long while, when Luke never appeared and Kess was too rested to get back to sleep, she pulled her naked feet out of the bunk and sat up. The air was moist, warm and smelled of rotting vegetation. The pressure was different. They must have landed.

It took two steps on the grated deck to reach the open cupboard and pluck out her duffel. It was clear that girly girls packed her a change of clothes for they were the only ones who would have packed make-up for her. With a quick visit to the lav, she cleaned her teeth, washed her face, and changed into a set of exercise clothes. It was too difficult to stretch on a sports bra over the arm cast, so she just went bra-less under the big cotton shirt. She stuffed her combat boots on but didn't tie the laces. She was too eager to see where they were and figure out where he had gone. Instead of digging further to see if anyone packed her own jacket, she just grabbed his navy blue jacket hanging from the bunk post and threaded her arms in it.

For a split second, she started for the exit ramp, but the jacket caught her attention the moment it was around her. She draped it over her shoulders and absorbed the big warmth. She pulled the corduroy collar to her nose and drank in the smell of _him_.

Blindly, Kess sat back down on the bunk and tried not to cry. She pulled the jacket so far around her shoulders that she could barely see over the collar folding over her nose. She hugged herself hard into the heavy fabric, thinking of those times she saw him wear it, thinking of those rare lessons when his arms reached around her. She shuddered out tears and tried to combine those memories into a single fantasy. Those arms around her, that chest in her face, that warmth, that essence, if he would just hold her strong and let her be weak… let her be the 'damsel in distress'… just for a couple of minutes…

But he _couldn't_.

Because she _wasn’t_.

With a hard sniff, she wiped her eyes dry and stared at nothing to think on that. She mulled over so many memories of him, of his wisps of impatience in the managers' office, of his laughter in the clearing, of when he talked with his mouth full. She remembered the day when he seemed _too_ giddy during the morning run only to have the midday punctuated by a GQ drill. She remembered the day sitting next to him on the Frakkan beach while they played with the fine-grain sand trying to figure out what made it red. She remembered the day she won at tag the first time and how he yelped with laughter, whipping his hand in the air for a second before turning on his heels to take up the chase with a playful flare of revenge. She remembered that day... that day when Grandpa showed up.

_"If you had a reason to wait until your training was over…"_

Then he kissed her.

And then Grandpa showed up…

After that day, trying not to think about that day was torture. Meditating away that day was difficult and largely ineffective. She could do it. She did it quite often. But no matter how sharply she focused or how long she meditated, that peace always shattered the moment a spark lit up in his blue eye.

Those sparks were aimed at her often enough, over some joke she made on the Pad, or some childish complaint she made in the clearing. Yet he still managed to shatter her concentration when he was smiling at something else, or when he touched her by accident trying reach for something behind her, or when he just sat there to read a datapad over a meal without even acknowledging she was sitting there.

Usually, she'd say something mundane, something like, "I gotta go home," or, "Here's your report," or even, "Hey Artoo…" Luke's eyes would glance over and that spark would be back, shining at her passed the fist he was resting his cheek upon, as though he were trying to hide his smile behind his curled pinky. In those moments, _that day_ would be shining at her through his eyes all over again, raging fresh as if he had just kissed her two minutes ago.

Mistake or no, after that day, there was nothing that was going to erase _that day_.

But she still needed him, the shipmate part of him, the Jedi Master, the best friend; she needed Luke to get through this, to climb out of this. She felt like she was at the bottom of a well and all her scrambling to keep from falling farther only made her slip deeper into darkness. She could barely see him anymore in that spot of light far above, and only enough of him to see his hand getting ready to let go of the rope that had her, getting ready to let go because _she told him to_.

Kess closed her eyes and retreated deeper into that warm jacket for one more moment of weakness. She whispered forbidden words into the corduroy collar. Then she huffed a deep breath and whispered shaky apologies. Then she huffed an even deeper breath and steeled herself to jump back into the thorny journey whether Luke's love was at the end of this road or not.

Kess dragged her clopping boots down the open ramp. She heard no deep hum of power, no speeders zipping by, no voices; just far away caws and cackles and an occasional splash. For a moment, she thought they were on some remote spot on Yavin 4, but she realized she had no idea how long she was out. They could have been anywhere.

She stepped onto the surface in bewilderment. This jungle was grayer and swampier than Yavin. The trees were entirely different in shape and four times taller. Snakes slithered through the brush. Evil cackles rained down in the still air. Vines hung like living curtains. If the ground wasn't a puddle, it was mud or wet dirt. A thick mist blanketed the landscape and drifted up into those giant, gnarling trees.

A few metres away from the open ramp, where three of these immense root-bases created a triangle on the jungle floor, Luke lounged over a steamy little campfire. He sat on one of the crates he'd set up around the spot, leaning his elbows onto his knees so he could cut up a shuura fruit and eat it in pieces.

It wasn't cold, but Kess hugged the blue jacket around her shoulders anyway. This place was just plain creepy. She dragged her loose boots through a carpet of fallen leaves and looked around for signs of civilization as she joined him at the tiny campsite.

She sat down on a crate opposite his little fire and looked up at the dull sky and dingy foliage. "When you said, 'hide out for a few days', I was thinking, y'know, Nakisa."

He grinned softly.

Brown eyes looked around some more. "Where are we?"

"Dagobah." He said it as if she should know the name. He offered a slice of shuura fruit across the space to her.

"Never heard of it." She took it the juicy white flesh and nibbled, still looking around. He had set up two lamps on the handful of crates so the dull sky and fire wasn't the only lighting. A sonic insect repellent hummed at the apogee of the wedge-shaped campsite.

"That's why it's a more effective hide-out than Nakisa," he pointed out, lifting one grinning eye her way.

Kess tried to scoff it off, but she found the humor in it and smiled in spite of herself. A featherless bird cawed overhead. The sky was the color of a dull coin.

"How do you feel?" He asked respectfully.

Kess turned her eyes to see him again and dragged her sights to the ground before actually meeting his eyes. She swallowed hard and adjusted the jacket around her neck some more. "I'm fine."

His brows knitted. "If you're cold, ther—

"I'm not cold," she muttered, snuggling deeper into his jacket.

"Then—

"Shut up."

Timidly, she watched the single flame of his little fire while he added a few more branches to it. The raw orange flame glowed with warmth and comfort. It seemed as though he were shining a single light so she could find her own way out of the dark. _Here's the rope_ , he seemed to say, _climb up yourself._

He got up from his perch and rummaged for something in another crate. She secretly watched his blue hip and white shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows as if his forearms were escaping containment. There was no lightsaber where it should be, and no blaster on the other hip. He wasn't even wearing a commlink. Kess assumed it was all set aside somewhere, out of the way but ready to be Pulled into grip should the need arise.

She wondered where her lightsaber was. She needed it to resume its service as her symbolic entrapment before she did something that would make him yell at her again. She needed to get out of these exercise clothes and put on a bra. She needed to stop using his jacket like a security blanket. All it would take is one touch of tenderness and she'd be in pieces. Kess looked back towards the ship but didn't recognize the design. She wondered it if had a shower.

Kess oscillated with indecision. She wondered where her lightsaber was.

Luke squatted down to straddle her crate from the left, sitting unusually close. Kess reared back before she saw that his arms were full of stuff. "What are you doing?"

His hair was in his eyes as he set down a medical kit and started unwrapping supplies. "Your bandage fell off."

Kess watched over her shoulder at his work, watched him clean off his own hands with a disinfectant, and unwrap a white envelope the size of his palm. When he reached up to touch her hair, she flinched.

He paused. His arms hovered over the side of her head. Then, more tenderly, he touched her again. Kess visibly braced herself to keep from reacting to it. His fingers padded to adjust her hair on her skull so he could work.

"This may sting a little."

It did, but only a little. He sat tall over her left side and taped a smaller bandage to the side of her crown. It took work to get it to stay within a full head of loose hair. With his arms up and around her head, Kess fought to keep herself from falling sideways into that chest and start crying.

"How big is it?" She asked instead.

"Not big. Maybe a centimetre. But it's deep. Puncture wound of some kind."

That decrepit Y-wing flashed in her mind, the battle around her, the man in the front seat, the 'puncture wound' she gave Lokey when she stabbed him in the side of the neck with a screwdriver. She could still smell that the stench on the Force when Lokey died and her stomach flipped. She slammed her eyes shut and put her palm over her mouth, face scrunched into nothing. Kess began to shake all over again and tried to implode. "I killed him."

Luke's eyes dropped to her before his hands did. He stopped doing whatever he was doing.

Kess hugged herself in the jacket.

His arm began to move around her back, but Kess jumped and yelped. "Stop touching me!" She curled in on herself like a retreating snake.

Luke dropped down onto his knees in the mud in front of her, trying to dip his head into her line of sight, trying to get her attention without touching her. "I'm just trying to take care of you."

"Well, _don't_!" She barked at him, wincing weakly even as she did so. "I'm a Jedi Apprentice, not a damsel in distress!"

Luke blinked back.

Her brows knitted like she had a migraine, trying not to look him in the eye but couldn't stop herself. She crumbled with shame and humiliation to have to say this out loud. _"I am so scared."_

Luke's mouth fell open.

Tears welled up to blur her vision so much that she couldn't decipher his reaction anymore. "Please don't make me do this alone."

He fumbled with uncertainty, standing again on his knees in front of her but unsure what to do.

Kess gritted her teeth and _begged_. "Please don't let go—

His mouth interrupted hers.

He held her face with both big hands and kissed her, quick and tender, and Kess froze in it. His kiss wasn't deep and it wasn't long, but he didn't run away when it was over either. This time, he hugged her head to his cheek with a shuddering sigh of relief.

Kess just buried her eyes into his neck. "I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong," she whimpered.

Still, he said nothing. She knew what was going to happen, but she didn't have the strength to fight it anymore. His body closed around her and pulled her ear to his shoulder, his arm hugged her head into his neck. Luke's body swallowed her whole, and she just disintegrated in it.

Kess cried _hard_.

He adjusted his boots in the mud behind him and sat back on his haunches, pulling her with him until she rested completely against him. Despite the slice of his own trepidation, Luke held on tight.

The first layer was a terror so ink dark that she couldn't sense anything anymore. It was like walking blind to find a light switch on a giant landing deck. But even if she couldn't see anything, big arms had her pinned, hard and secure, like lifelines keeping her from getting lost. She balled into his neck and gripped the shirt at his back like a baby monkey.

"I've got you," his whisper danced across her ear.

Crying, it turned out, was more effective than running. She screamed in her mind as loudly as she wailed in real life, both cries slowly released the pressure from a fear so old and so thick that she never knew how deep it went. And it wasn't a fear of dying or getting wounded in battle, it was something else entirely; something about being alone, about being broken-hearted, being rejected, never knowing, never finding her way home. It didn't make any sense. And yet the clear compass point to guide her away from that fear was right in front of her.

Eggplant fear bled out to a brown, chunky mud of heartbreak, deliberately hidden under evergreen pieces of anger.

The crying quivered into a scream. "I hate you!"

"I know," he assured in a shaky whisper.

She balled her fist and tried to hit him against his shoulders, but she didn't have the strength at this angle She squirmed in his grip to try to get away, but he only pinned her harder to the front of his angled body. He held her head to his neck with his arm and whispered into her eyebrow. "I am _so sorry_."

She crumbled with those words. Those pine green splotches tumbled away as if his whisper reached in and punched holes right through the layer of fury, but those big boulders of brown junk churned in the wake.

"I should've never— " She couldn't finish because she wasn't entirely sure what she was trying to say. "He—

"You trusted him and he betrayed you."

Indigo hate erupted up for revenge! She gripped his shirt again and stiffened every muscle. But even as her body instinctively reacted, her voice questioned the topic. "Who are you talking about?"

Luke almost smiled at the simplicity of that. "It doesn't matter, does it?" He held her firmly to him. "Lokey for deceiving you. Your father for scaring you... Maser for cheating on you. Rix for dying on you... Your grandfather for leaving you and me for hiding things from you."

Like gasket splitting without warning, she exploded into a new angry struggle, trying to beat him up without letting him go.

His whisper was soft. "I've got you."

Pinned down like that, the only way the rage could erupt out of her was through a pugnacious, thunderous, hateful growl. Her voice echoed in the wet jungle until it was eaten by the darkness.

After she was done, the crickets didn't resume chirping for a full minute.

Kess felt another layer of darkness peel off like dead skin. As the midnight hatred fluttered away like moths in her mind, that dark, chunky, bitter chocolate brown was becoming more and more _red_.

The Dagobah sky was dark and the fire had gone cold. Kess realized she had no idea how long they had been sitting there like that, how long she'd been crying in his arms. She had a tear-drenched wad of gauze in her hand that she never remembered reaching for. They could have been like that for a few minutes as much as it could have been a few hours. The parts of her body not pressed against his warmth or covered by his jacket was feeling incrementally colder with nightfall.

With most of the fear and the anger and the hatred now worked out of the way, she began to recognize what he was doing all this time. She had become a hydrogen tank with a faulty release cap. Luke held her down so the pressure could safely escape. Kess began to sense things again, to see his Force print again. With no other sentients around, no nearby 'walking globs of emotion', not even klicks away in some city, she could relax her mind in the soft rawness of nature and the security of his light.

This was safe. This was private. This was _secret_. Her mind slowly relaxed, like a muscle finally able to rest, but there was still a barrier. No matter how much she meditated the rest of it, 'that day' still throbbed like a blood blister ready to burst.

And now that she had cleaned out all the murky emotion she was using to muddy 'that day' into obscurity…

Kess grew acutely aware how she lay atop him from knees to shoulders, how there was only one layer of cheap fabric separating her skin from his hands. Her face was in his neck. Her nose was under his chin. She sucked in a deep breath of him and fingered the hair at the back of his neck. She tried to hide her mind from her desire by squeezing him harder, but that had the opposite effect.

Luke was no fool. It didn't take Force skill to feel the heat begin to rise. His mouth moved to her ear and Kess braced for a new rejection.

Luke inhaled a parental breath to speak—

_Splat. Splat. Splat._

Rain came down as if some dead Jedi just turned on a water hose onto their heads. Luke winced from the sky. Kess pulled the jacket over her head. Together, they scrambled to their feet and dove for the ship. Tiny geysers of mud splashed up from the ground at their feet. The rain came down cold and hard, but Luke and Kess were chuckling, weak and embarrassed, by the time they ran up the little ramp.

Luke swept away the wet jacket from their heads the moment they were under cover and looked for a place to hang it over the still open ramp. Kess toed off her loose combat boots so she wouldn't track in the mud. She tried to use this moment to shove that last moment under the carpet before she got yelled at again. "Harvest time," she teased weakly.

Luke snorted a goofy snigger and dropped his back against the opposite bulkhead.

Kess took one look at him, at his silly grin and sparkling eyes, at the wet hair drooping into his face and she tumbled right into it.

"Geez, when are you going to get a haircut?" She stepped over and reached up to scoop the wet hair out of his face—

And his eyes drew her in. And his hands took her hips. And she stopped breathing.

And his kiss was exquisite.

Her arms fell around his neck. His palms warmed her ribs. The rain hummed a soft, solid roar on the powerless ship. His mouth was timid and gentle, warm and sweet. The Force ignited and pulsed.

His nose fell against hers and rested there.

She opened her eyes to find him just as breathless by it, just as drugged by it. She knew she should pull away before he reacted like a drill sergeant, before somebody glowed up to tell them to stop, but she couldn't move. Kess was so thirsty for this she didn't have the strength to pull away.

Hands brushed around her neck and fingers wove into her hair behind her ears as if to get the mess out of the way of what he wanted. Before she realized what was happening, Luke kissed her again.

There were no more barriers, no more apologies. No sour wisps of 'it's none of your business.' No more stings of calling it a 'mistake'. There was no power, no people, no interruptions, and no glowing chaperones. Nothing existed outside of this… _syrup_. He kissed her this way and came up for a breath of surprise, then kissed her that way and stared at her through droopy lids. She pulled herself into him by his wet shoulders and reached for more. The rain roared and the ship slept and they made out in the dark doorway for several beautiful minutes.

As if a timed moment in a dance, both minds drifted toward the empty bunk less than a metre from their feet.

_No one would know._

Mouths slowed to a pause.

It was simultaneous, the way she squeezed her eyes shut, the way he bit his lip. Their faces fell together with a mutual wince of regret and craving. Drugged and struggling, Kess whispered against his mouth. "Oh, this has got to be some kind of test from somebody."

Forehead to forehead, he swallowed hard and shook his head. "No. Not a test," he watched her face, "a decision."

Unable to let go, Kess stayed there in his arms and heard him out.

His throat tightened to speak these words out loud. "You want a piece of me? Take it." He gripped her sides with his fingers as his voice grew to a lusty huff, "I _want_ you to take it."

Lust splashed at her like a crashing wave, taking the breath right out of her. His breath shuddered on her cheek. "But that's all you'll get: a _piece_."

Kess tightened her stomach and held still, listening to that breath in her ear.

"Everybody keeps asking me how soon you're training is going to be over. And _no one_ wants it to be finished more than I do." He shook his head. "But you're not finished, Kess. You're not even close. And you're the only one who knows that better than me."

Kess closed her eyes again and squeezed her eyes shut against his jaw.

He whispered into her eyelash. "I'm not going to fight you anymore. And your grandfather isn't going to show up on us either." He swallowed hard and his whisper paled. "But if you cross that gap before you're finished... If you take it now, _all you get is 'now'_."

Her fingers gripped the shoulders of his wet shirt.

His whisper grew strong, almost laughing it. "Because if you can't figure out which side of the Force this is on, woman, you have _not_ been paying attention in class."

Luke's words ended a dirty chuckle. Kess stuffed her flushed laughter into his neck.

They laughed guiltily together and they both sighed together, a controlled release of tension and mystery.

Kess teetered, unsure whether to trust her instincts or her logic, unsure to trust anything. She needed to hear him say it. "What do _you_ want?"

After a pause, Luke's whisper crossed her ear. "I want more than 'now'."

Kess drank it up and shuddered under his hands.

"I want more than 'just a piece'," he admitted, "and I'm willing to wait for it. I've _been_ waiting for it." He shook, his hands trembled against her ribs. "But if you cross this gap any further, Kess, I will _not_ hold you back anymore."

Her eyes closed with sexual frustration and intelligent logic. She struggled with wanting it and forced herself to not want it. Yin and yang spun into a hurricane.

Then he whispered the scary truth that came with it all. "But I won't be your teacher anymore either. You'll have to train alone. Or wait until I train someone else to teach you for me." He shook his head. "That could take years, if you finish at all, and by then..." He didn't finish. His whisper ended in a quivering sigh.

Her teeth chomped shut to hold herself back.

"This isn't a test, Kess. This is a _decision_." His voice returned, husky and harsh. "And I'm giving you complete authority to make it."

His words made her quake as much as he did, but neither of them moved for a full minute.

'Follow your instincts', he always said. But being sentient was about, 'When _not_ to follow your instincts.' Kess realized the zenith of Jedi training was figuring out when to follow your instincts and when to turn away from them.

Kess pulled her arms from his shoulders and slid her hands to his face. She dared to look at him and brushed her thumb down his lips. Still trembling, Luke opened his eyes and reached his mouth—

Face to face, breath in breath, Kess consciously reached around her human desire and grabbed hold of the logic hiding behind it. She nodded into his eyes and pushed herself away from his body.

Luke's sucked in a breath like she was taking a knife out of his stomach, but his palms allowed her to slip away.

She backed up to the opposite bulkhead of the entrance corridor, still shaking with lust, and rattled her head. Staring at each other across the tiny, unlit space, they both worked to catch their breath for a little while. Luke wiped his wet hair from his face and closed his face for a hesitant exhale. Kess tried to scoop away her long hair over a shoulder, padding the little bandage to verify it was still in place.

She closed her eyes and screamed in her mind to make it go away, but it didn't work.

As though he changed his tune, he reached for her hands across the corridor and pulled her back over to him.

Unsure about this, but unable to deny him, she moved where he guided. _Didn't we just make a decision?_ He wrapped her up in his arms again. He settled back against the bulkhead, locking his knees, and pulled her in to rest against his body. Like a wet rag doll, she just fell against him and drank in the warm comfort of it. This time, he wrapped big arms around her shoulders and held her close, sighing with difficulty into her hair.

Kess hid her face in his breast and collarbone and let herself be weak, just for a couple of minutes…

…and discovered that she could sense a lot more now than she could yesterday.

Obedient to her training, Kess opened her mind and first looked inward to her own mess of color.

All that was left of the old terror was a lavender flush of the unknown future. The wrath blew away like leaves so that only an apple green of inconvenience remained. Irritation tumbled away like a spilt box of bolts, leaving only a handful of baby blue annoyances. The raisin-soured broken heart reached out like a shy sapling to the other Force Print now wrapped gently around her. The passion drained as it stretched, red shifted to orange, brown faded to peach. Her arms held his waist as her Force Print timidly hugged his soul.

Now, looking directly at it on the Force, she could practically see it when it happened.

Carefully, slowly, Luke wrapped his mind around her, despite the swirls of passion still in them both. He sucked air through his teeth and tugged himself down into a meditation to drain out all the dark junk that was left inside him so that he could show the way to drain out all the dark junk that was left inside her.

Kess held on tight, tender and trusting, letting him pull her back into the daylight until she was back on solid ground once again.

 


	47. LL2 47 Kadaan

** LL2                   47         Kadaan **

The officer shivered in his boots when he reported the news. It didn't matter that Supreme Prophet Kadaan was sitting apathetically in his throne, Admiral Cheenan was _furious_.

"What made the imbecile think that we would be able to protect him after he took off in broad daylight?" He waved his hands in frustrated disbelief. "Right in the middle of the base? Did he think those twenty flight groups would just stand around and _watch_?"

The officer didn't answer that.

Kadaan set his elbow on his chair and rested his long cheek in his palm. "Where are they?"

"They were seen boarding a small transport ship and going into hyperspace three days ago."

Cheenan laughed sickly, ready to wring the officer's neck. "He didn't ask you where they were _three days ago_."

The officer's eyes stretched sideways to stare at Cheenan.

Kadaan swished his fingers in the air. "No, no. It's alright. This gives me an idea."

Cheenan waited with respect, but still clearly wanted to backhand the officer anyway.

Kadaan narrowed his eyes at Cheenan. "Has Shori Ka shown more intelligence in your communiqués?"

Cheenan shrugged. "I don't sense Shori Ka to be the type to panic like Mugwot Pon did."

Kadaan waved a finger. "I wonder if the entire team might consider working together in concert to aid in our offensive."

Cheenan nodded to consider this. "You think they can bring her to us on the way out?"

Kadaan studied his fingernails. "They will if they want to live."

** End Book 2 **


End file.
